Separation never lasts long
by TheSovereigntyofReality
Summary: What if it turned out Rose's presence in the parallel world caused a misbalance? A reworking of series 3. Doctor/Rose. I claim no ownership to Doctor Who or any of the cannon characters. Really like to know what people think of my companion OC.
1. Smith and ?

**What would happen if it turned out Rose's presence in the parallel world caused a misbalance?**

**(No Martha or Jones family in this one)**

Chapter 1: Smith and ?

Dani grumbled and complained about many things:

The weak endurance of the human race.

Annoying questions.

Being hungry.

At that point in time, she was complaining that she was not in the mood to wander into hospitals for no apparent reason other than Carly Alice, Sovereign of the 21st Century, had told her to.

XXX

It didn't take her long to find him. The man that'd found Dani on a barren rock when she was just five years old, taken her in and raised her, against the laws of his own people.

Dani grinned. He was looking out the hospital window, to the city below. She couldn't resist.

'Why, hello, Doctor!' she suddenly chirped. 'How are you? Do sit down. Put your feet up. I'll get you a cuppa and we can catch up!'

His reaction was to jump, whip around and burst out laughing. It stopped as suddenly as it had started. Then Dani cocked her head and looked at him.

'What happened?' she asked.

'What?' the Doctor asked.

'It's your eyes,' Dani answered. 'It's like they spent a couple of years getting younger and then they started getting older again.' Her eyes widened in realisation. 'You found someone. Someone who saved you from yourself and then you lost them, didn't you?'

* * *

><p>Rose Tyler sat in her Torchwood office, working. She was a workaholic these days.<p>

She never went to the pub.

She never went to parties.

She barely even talked to anyone anymore.

She was Rose Tyler, defender of the Earth.

Nothing more, nothing less.

All anyone at Torchwood knew was she had lost someone. Someone who meant more than the world to her. That someone had been her world. So she buried herself in her work.

There was a gentle rapping at the door.

'Come in,' she called.

The door opened and her dad walked in. 'Rose, I've been looking through your latest stuff. What's this business with something called the Rift?'

'The Rift is a gap in time and space,' Rose said. 'A few weeks back I got a visitor who told me it'll be activated at the end of the year and then closed. The energy emitted will only be enough for one person to slip through and into the dimension I was born in. I need him, dad. I need to know if it's true. And if it is, I've got to go.'

Pete nodded. 'You do need him. And anyone with eyes can see he needs you just as much.'

Rose smiled sadly and waited for Pete to leave before she let herself break down and cry.

* * *

><p>Dani realised the Doctor didn't want to talk about it, so she looked past him and out the window.<p>

'That's an H2O scoop, isn't it?' she asked upon seeing the rain.

The Doctor twisted around. 'Hold on!'

Dani had been around the Doctor long enough to know he meant what he said. That, and he'd taught her about H2O scoops. She grabbed onto a railing as the Doctor braced himself against a doorframe and soon enough the entire hospital felt like it was in an earthquake.

XXX

Dani looked out at the surface. 'We're on the moon.' She reported. Then she looked over at the Doctor. She looked him up and down, taking in his jammies. She didn't doubt he could save the world like that, but it was a bit inconvenient. She raised her eyebrows. 'Do you wanna get dressed?'

XXX

Surrounded by a thousand panicky humans, Dani and the Doctor ran to the balcony and pushed the doors open together. They both inhaled Earth air.

'Force-field?' Dani asked.

'Most likely,' the Doctor agreed.

'Random question,' Dani said. 'But did you happen to have anything to do with the Battle of Canary Wharf?'

The Doctor grinned ruefully. 'Is it that obvious?'

'With you around, yeah.' Dani nodded. 'I wasn't sorry to see them go. Yvonne was a right bitch. Of course, you already knew that, didn't you?'

'Yeah.' The Doctor almost hissed through his teeth.

'Well, after that little Christmas incident I went and visited all four Torchwoods. Greg and Collin were right sadistic sods, so I ended up killing them and getting rid of their Torchwoods. The guy in charge of Torchwood 3's actually decent though. I think you know him. Captain Jack Harkness?'

The Doctor looked at her. 'Yeah, I know him.'

'So, why'd you leave him at the Gamestation?' There was no accusation in her tone, just simple, honest curiosity.

'He's wrong,' the Doctor answered. 'Every instinct I had was screaming to get away from him. Even the TARDIS was. If he went anywhere near her, she probably would have launched herself to the end of the Universe.'

Dani nodded. 'Okay.' She accepted that. 'Well, he thought the perfect place to find you would be the early 21st Century, so he used a Vortex Manipulator and ended up in 1869.'

The Doctor smirked.

'I laughed at him,' Dani told him. 'He wasn't too amused. The jump burnt out the Manipulator. So, when Torchwood surfaced ten years later he joined, hoping it'd make you easier to find. After they tortured him of course. I still haven't worked out the logic in that.'

'Didn't see him at Canary Wharf,' the Doctor commented. 'If he was there he would have definitely jumped in when they threatened…' He trailed off.

Dani remembered this sort of thing from after the Time War. 'Jack told me about her. Would've liked to meet her.' She twisted around. 'Anyway. There's about a thousand life-forces in this hospital.'

'The air in this…' The Doctor pitched a stone and it hit a force-field. '…force-field will eventually run out and all one thousand will suffocate.'

'Who do you suppose is doing it?' Dani asked.

There was suddenly a loud booming noise overhead.

'Heads up,' The Doctor stated, as they both looked. 'Ask him yourself.'

Three enormous ships flew overhead and landed a few yards away from the hospital. The Doctor and Dani watched as they opened and uniformed and armoured aliens started marching towards the hospital.

'Aren't they…?' Dani began.

'Judoon.'

XXX

'Oh,' the Doctor commented as he and Dani looked down at the Judoon below, from behind the glass barrier of the balcony. 'They got a little shop. I like a little shop.'

'I'll keep that in mind if I ever take you shopping,' Dani teased, before turning serious. 'Are they making a catalogue?'

'Yup,' the Doctor said. 'That means they're looking for something non-human.'

'Uh oh,' Dani muttered.

'Couldn't have put it better myself.' The Doctor nodded. 'Come on. Let's find this alien before they find us.'

'I think I just did,' Dani stated, feeling the fading life-force.

XXX

Dani kicked the door in. 'On the run? We have to pay for our sins, don't we? What do those rhinos even want you for anyway?'

The Doctor almost beamed. Playing dumb. Acting human. Something she'd picked up from his 7th form. The alien, a Plasmavore if he wasn't mistaken, looked up, red blood on her lips.

'Get her!' the Plasmavore yelled.

She hadn't seen him. _Good. _If he had to bluff, it'd come in handy. Dani's eyes widened as she feigned fear and she turned around. They both shot out of the room and ran through the corridors.

'X-ray?' Dani called, glancing back at the Slab following them.

'Yup!'

They kept running until they got to the x-ray room. The Doctor locked the door, and then turned to Dani.

'When I say now, push the button!' he told her.

Dani didn't question him. As he ran over to the x-ray machine and rammed his Sonic Screwdriver in, she ran behind the shield and grabbed the Operator's Manual. It took her about three seconds to find what she was looking for. She looked up and watched as the Slab knocked the door in and came towards the Doctor.

'Now!' he yelled.

She hit the big yellow button and idly wondered if it could be any more obvious. She didn't have to look away as the x-ray machine activated and the entire room lit up. To her, it was fascinating to watch the skeleton-effect on the Doctor while the Slab just tightened up and dropped dead when the x-ray finished.

'What did you do?' Dani asked, putting the Operator's Manual aside and walking out, her body neutralising the radiation as it came into her.

'Increased the radiation by 5000%,' the Doctor said. 'Killed him dead.'

'So, where are you going to expel the radiation from?' she asked.

'I think…my left shoe.' The Doctor then started doing what Dani thought of as a "hoppy-dance". 'Out! Out! Out! Out! Ow! Itches! Itches! Itches! Itches! Itches!'

By this time, Dani was laughing so hard she was almost doubled over. The Doctor yanked his shoe off and tossed it in the bin.

'Ah! There!'

Dani managed to recover from her laughing fit and look down at his feet pointedly. He looked down too.

'You're right,' he agreed. 'I look daft with one shoe.' He yanked his other shoe off and threw it into the bin. 'Barefoot on the Moon!'

Dani chuckled and looked over at the Sonic in the x-ray machine. 'You burnt out the Sonic.'

'Eh?' he asked and looked. 'Oh.' He went and pulled the burnt, blackened and melted stick of metal out of the x-ray machine. 'My Sonic Screwdriver,' he almost whimpered. 'I love my Sonic Screwdriver.'

'Doctor.' Dani almost laughed again.

He threw it behind him. 'Sorry.'

Dani just shrugged and said, 'Never mind. Let's just go see if our Plasmavore's had her fill yet or not.'

* * *

><p>Mickey watched as Rose worked on the alien that seemed to have surfaced in London. She finally looked up at him. She seemed to still have the TARDIS translation circuits working for her, even though he didn't. It was like she was a part of the TARDIS. She groaned and leaned her head back.<p>

'Slitheen,' she complained. 'Why does it have to be Slitheen?'

'What are Slitheen?' asked Pete.

'They're aliens made out of living calcium,' Mickey explained. 'Mine valuable things from planets and sell them, usually destroying the planet's race in the meantime.'

'What planet are they from?' Pete asked.

'I can't pronounce it,' Mickey answered. 'But Rose can.'

'Raxacoricofallapatorius,' Rose said. 'You spray them with vinegar and they explode. They disguise themselves as overweight humans because they've got a compression field. You can tell because there's a zip around the head that's invisible if you're not looking for it.'

'They'll probably "crash" a ship,' Mickey explained. 'That's what they did in our world. Made it hit Big Ben and crash into the Thames. The ship had a carefully mutated pig inside.'

'Then they said the "aliens" had massive weapons of destruction,' Rose added. 'Said the belly of the mother ship was directly above the United Kingdom and "begged" that the United Nations release the access codes. Which they decided to do.'

'But right before they could, with the Doctor's help, because he and Rose were trapped in Downing Street and couldn't do anything, I launched a missile at Downing Street,' Mickey explained.

'But at one point, a Slitheen attacked mum and Mickey,' Rose explained. 'That was when the Doctor figured it out: acetic acid.'

'And another thing,' Mickey added. 'When the Slitheen are in the skin suit they fart a lot.'

'It's the calcium decay,' Rose explained. 'So it smells more like bad breath.'

XXX

Torchwood, led by Rose and Mickey, marched right into 10 Downing Street. Rose had told them about the electrified ID tags. So, she waited until the Slitheen disguised as the General shed his skin suit before bursting through the doors.

'Sorry, mate,' She said. 'This planet's well defended.'

With that she fired the super-soaker and all the vinegar she fired went right onto the exposed Slitheen. He, naturally, exploded and a few minutes later all hell broke loose.

* * *

><p>'Drained him dry,' the Doctor stated. 'She's definitely a Plasmavore.'<p>

'Yup.' Dani leaned over the Doctor's shoulder and, following an Earth custom, closed the dead man's eyes. 'Let's go.'

The Doctor got up and led her out, rubbing the back of his head as he muttered, 'Okay. Think, think, think, think. If I was a wanted Plasmavore surrounded by police, what would I do?'

They both spotted the sign to the MRI room at the same time.

'Oh,' the Doctor muttered. 'She's as clever as me. Well, almost.'

'Doctor,' Dani said. 'Anyone you meet who's clever is almost as clever as you.'

Then the doors burst open and the Judoon came through. 'Find the non-Human! Execute!'

'Dani, think you can slowly lead them to the MRI?' the Doctor asked.

'No problem.'

XXX

The Doctor walked into the MRI room where the Plasmavore was doing something to the computer. Better now than never.

'Have you seen?' he yelped hysterically. 'There are these great, big, rhino things from space! I mean, rhinos from space! And we're on the Moon! I only came in for my bunions!' He jumped and grabbed his foot. 'Perfectly fine now. Nurses were lovely. I said to my wife. I said I'd recommend this place to anyone.' He let his foot drop. 'And now we're on the Moon! And…did I mention the rhinos?'

'Slab, hold him!' the Plasmavore ordered.

XXX

Judoon were, as the Doctor had said, logical and just a bit thick. So a trail of obstructions was perfect. Dani made one and they came to it like a moth to fire and it took them a few minutes to move it and continue beyond it.

As soon as the obstruction was moved, Dani went to make another one.

* * *

><p>Rose poured some more vinegar into the super-soaker.<p>

'Here's the deal,' she told the experts, as she did so. 'You can either fight or leave. If you fight, then you go out the door, turn left and Mickey will give you a super-soaker full of vinegar. If you want to leave, go straight and Jake will get you out the back.'

'How does the vinegar work?' one expert asked.

'The Slitheen are made of living calcium,' Rose explained. 'What they've got around their necks is a compression field so they can fit into the human skin suits. But there's a gas exchange: calcium decay. Because of the gas exchange and the compression field the living calcium is weakened and acetic acid causes a chemical reaction that causes the Slitheen to explode.'

XXX

'Only three people left,' Jake reported. 'Everyone else wants to fight.'

'Good,' Rose said. 'The Slitheen would've felt when their brothers died. It's something in their biology. They'll be on their way. They can smell fear and adrenalin. And don't shoot at them until they've taken the skin suits off. I don't know, but I think the skin suits will protect them.'

'How intelligent are they?' one expert asked. 'When you killed the first one, the second one got out of his skin suit as fast as he could.'

'Smart enough that they almost fooled everyone,' Rose answered. 'All species, no matter how smart they are, do stupid things when they get angry.'

Rose's mind flashed back to the first time she met a Dalek. The Doctor was the smartest person she knew, but when that Dalek surfaced in Van Statten's museum all his good common sense had flown out the window and he'd acted like an idiot. That reminded her. But she'd get on that later.

'Anyway,' she went on. 'Turn on the TV. They'll show when a bunch of apparently "unimportant" people show up. They'll be the Slitheen.'

* * *

><p>'What's that thing do?' the Doctor asked.<p>

'You wouldn't understand,' the Plasmavore told him.

'Hold on, I did Magnetics GCSE,' he said. 'Well…I failed. But all the same. Isn't that an electro-magnetic…uh…thing?'

'With it's power amped up to 50, 000 tesla,' the Plasmavore stated. 'That'll fry the brain cells of every living thing within 250, 000 miles. Except for me. Safe in this room.'

'I did Geometry GCSE, I passed that one,' the Doctor said. 'Doesn't that distance include the Earth?'

'Only the side facing the Moon,' the Plasmavore answered. 'The other half will survive. Call it my little gift.'

'You'll excuse me,' the Doctor told her. 'I seem a little out of depth. I spent the last 15 years working as a postman, hence the bunion, but why would you do that?'

'With everyone dead the Judoon ships will be mine to make my escape,' she answered.

'No, that's weird,' the Doctor said. 'You're talking like you're some sort of alien.'

'Quite so,' the Plasmavore agreed.

'No!' He feigned disbelief. 'You're joshing me?'

'I am not.'

'I'm talking to an alien? In a hospital.' His eyes shifted. 'Has this place got an ET department?'

'It's the perfect hiding place,' she said. 'Blood banks downstairs for a midnight feast and all this equipment ready to arm myself…should the police come looking.'

'So, those rhinos…they're looking for you?' the Doctor asked.

'Yes,' she whispered. 'But I'm hidden.' She held her hand up to show she'd already been catalogued.

'Oh,' the Doctor murmured. 'Maybe that's why they're increasing their scans.'

'They're doing what?' the Plasmavore turned around and looked at him.

'Hm.' The Doctor nodded. 'Big chief rhino boy said 'no sign of a non human. We must increase our scans up to setting two'.'

'Then I must assimilate again.' The Plasmavore went for the purse.

_Perfect._ Thought the Doctor, but out loud he said, 'What does that mean?'

'I must appear human,' she answered.

'Well, you're welcome to come home and meet the wife,' the Doctor chirped. 'We can have cake!'

_Wife. _He wished Rose was his wife. But he was too stupid. He waited too long. When he went to tell her he loved her, it was too late. He lost her.

'Why should I have cake?' the Plasmavore asked, pulling out a straw. 'I've got my little straw.'

'Oh, that's nice,' he told her. 'Milkshake? I like banana?'

'You're quite the funny man,' the Plasmavore responded. 'But, yet, I think, laughing at the darkness. I think it's time you got some peace.' She looked back at the Slab. 'Steady him.'

The Doctor cried out in pain as the Slab twisted him so he was doubled over and his head pushed to the side. The Plasmavore came over and rubbed the skin on his neck.

'Um…what are you doing?' he asked.

'I'm afraid this is going to hurt,' the Plasmavore told him. 'But, if it's any consolation, the dead don't tend to remember.'

Then the straw went in his neck and it did hurt. It was agony to feel the blood pulled out of his body. He let his thoughts drift to Rose as he felt himself dying. _My love…_

XXX

Dani dropped down on the ground of the MRI room. She watched the Doctor's body hit the ground as the Judoon came in a second later.

'Now look what you've done!' the Plasmavore accused. 'This poor man just died of fright.'

'Is that blood on your lips?' Dani asked. 'Looks too wet and fresh to be lipstick.' She stood up. 'Here.' She yanked a scanner from a Judoon and pointed it at the Plasmavore.

'Non-human.' The head Judoon stated.

'What?' the Plasmavore asked, shocked.

'Confirm analysis,' the head Judoon stated as Dani gave the other Judoon his scanner back.

She sat on the floor as they all pointed their scanners at the Plasmavore.

'But it's a mistake surely,' the Plasmavore insisted. 'I'm human! I'm as human as they come!'

'Confirmed Plasmavore,' the head Judoon stated. 'Charged with the crime of murdering the child princess of Patrivore Regency 9.'

'Well, she deserved it!' the Plasmavore snapped. 'Those pink cheeks, and those blonde curls and that simpering voice! She was begging for the bite of a Plasmavore!'

Dani, who was quite comfortable on the floor, scoffed.

'Then you confess?' the head Judoon asked.

'Confess?' she snapped. 'I'm proud of it!'

'Verdict: Guilty,' the head Judoon stated. 'Sentence: Execution.'

'Slab, stop them!' she ordered the Slab.

The Slab stepped forward as she ran and connected the red cable. The Judoon killed the Slab and then aimed at her.

'Enjoy your victory, Judoon!' she screamed shrilly. 'Because you're going to burn with me! Burn in hell!'

She barely finished her sentence before they killed her.

'You are aware that scanner's unstable, right?' Dani pointed to the MRI scanner.

The head Judoon went over and scanned it. 'Balance: unstable. Electro-magnetic pulse.'

'I take it that means you're leaving?' Dani asked.

'Confirmed,' answered the Judoon.

Then they all marched out and Dani sighed. All the humans would be suffocating about now.

And she had a Doctor to revive.

* * *

><p>Rose looked around at the mess of green flesh that blanketed Downing Street.<p>

'Move out!' She called.

She turned sharply on her heel and led every human out the back of 10 Downing Street.

XXX

Mickey sighed as he walked with everyone else, following Rose out of the building. He felt a hand on his shoulder and looked over to see one of the experts.

'Does she always behave like that?' he asked curiously.

'Every single day,' Mickey answered.

'How old is she?' the expert asked.

'About 21,' Mickey said. 'Why?'

'Her eyes are much older,' the expert stated. 'She lost someone, didn't she? Someone she still loves deeply and she can't ever see them again.'

Mickey looked at him, shocked. 'How do you know?'

'People are easy to read,' the expert answered. 'But only if you know how.'

* * *

><p>Dani crawled over to the Doctor. She could feel the air growing thin, but, as a…whatever her race was called, she could breathe in even the most dense or airless atmospheres. She could survive on an asteroid, for pity's sake.<p>

She knelt over the Doctor and sighed. Then she put a hand over each heart and summoned life energy from her core. She forced it down her arms, into her hands and out of her palms, into his body.

His body jumped and he gasped in air. He opened his eyes and looked at her, still gasping for breath. Dani looked at the scanner and he followed her gaze. Then he rolled over and stumbled over to the main control computer.

'Which one?' he wheezed. He was asking which cable the Plasmavore had connected.

'The red one,' Dani answered.

The Doctor grabbed the red cable and disconnected it. All the electrical activity ceased. Dani ran over and helped the Doctor to his feet. He was recovering, slowly but surely. He just needed a little more time. Dani was just glad he had respiratory bypass that was turning all the carbon dioxide into oxygen for him. Of course, they still had to worry about all the humans. Out of all races, humans were one of the most dependant on technology of all the races in the universe. They'd have to be moved back down to Earth.

XXX

The Doctor and Dani stood at the large window.

'Come on, Judoon,' the Doctor muttered. 'Come on, come on. Reverse it.'

Then the rain started to fall. The Doctor and Dani grinned and looked at each other.

'It's raining,' Dani stated.

'It's raining on the Moon,' the Doctor added

* * *

><p>Rose sat in her office with the Interdimensional Communication Book open in front of her. The only problem with it was she could only communicate with the person who had the other one. That person was Carly Alice, the girl who'd told her the Rift was going to open in the first place. She picked up a pen and wrote:<p>

**Carly, are you there?**

Then some words appeared on the page:

_**Yup. How are you doing?**_

**Coming along. I miss him.**

_**I know. He misses you too. That's why I had Dani meet up with him.**_

**Who's Dani?**

_**An alien that's living on Earth. Her race never really lived to give themselves or their planet a name so it was just Vector-24-Alpha-18 to most. The Doctor found her when she was five on a barren planet, orphaned, starving, crying and dying. Her planet had been blown up. He took her in and brought her up. Against the laws of his people, I might add. So, she can read him almost as well as you can.**_

**Almost?**

_**She has a weak telepathic link with the TARDIS formed out of necessity when she was growing up. That's always been how she finds things out. But sometimes she can tell what he needs just by looking at him. And this is one of those times.**_

**So, she's going to travel with him?**

_**Until you get back. Make sure he doesn't go crazy with grief, sappy as it sounds, but he will if he doesn't have a companion between now and when you go back. Dani will realise that.**_

**Thank you.**

_**You can thank Dani when you meet her. Ugh! Sorry, I've got to go. Some stupid witch just cast a bloody spell that'll wipe out my Universe if I don't step in. Catch you later.**_

**Okay. Bye.**

Rose closed the book and sat back in her chair. Carly had explained she was the Sovereign of the 21st Century and that meant she had to preserve all of reality and anything that came under it counted. Sometimes that required her to play matchmaker or reunite people.

She was an American with a lot of English expressions in her vocabulary. That came from the fact that her best friend was British and she had to support him a lot because, for the first few years, no one else would. They treated him like dirt.

There was something in Carly's job description that really ticked Rose off. She had to do everything the way some great higher powers wanted it done or all dimensions involved would collapse and crumble or something equally as bad. That was why she was being reunited with the Doctor like this.

* * *

><p>Dani followed the Doctor into the TARDIS.<p>

'Whoa.' She looked around at the decorating. 'Haven't been in here since you left that last time after the Time War. What happened after that?'

'I went into the Time Vortex,' the Doctor answered, as he moved the TARDIS off the London street. 'Patched her up then picked up the Nestine Consciousness here in London. That's how I met…' He trailed off.

'I'll just get the rest from the TARDIS,' Dani told him and he smiled gratefully.

He wanted her to know, he just didn't think he could tell her himself, she knew. So, Dani put her hand to the console and opened her mind to the ship. The Doctor could get images to and from the ship and talk telepathically to her, but Dani could only do the former. The Doctor could also sense when something was wrong with her and what. Everything flashed before Dani's onyx eyes.

_The Autons_

_The one word that had started it all: "run"._

_The blonde 19-year-old London shop girl with hazel eyes and as much love for the unknown as the Doctor and Dani herself had._

_The Nestine Consciousness._

_The End of the World._

_The Gelth._

_The Rift._

_The Slitheen._

_The Dalek._

_The Jagrafess._

_The day Rose Tyler almost destroyed the world and her father saved it by dying._

Dani had always wondered what had caused the incidents of that day. Now she knew.

_The Gas-Mask Humans caused by one young and stupid Captain Jack Harkness._

_The Nanogenes._

_The return of Blon Fel Fetch Pasameer-Day-Slitheen._

_The Gamestation._

_Rose's apparent death and the Doctor's pain-to-the-point-of-an-empty-shell-but-first-to-avenge-her grief._

_The Controller_

_The immeasurable joy the Doctor had at the revelation that Rose was alive._

_The Dalek Stratagem and the Doctor's daring and part-suicidal rescue._

_The Dalek Emperor and the Delta-Wave._

_Sending Rose home to keep her safe._

_Jack's first death._

_Rose's improbable return as the Bad Wolf._

_The Regeneration and the Post-Regenerative Trauma._

_The Sycorax._

_New Earth._

_Queen Victoria and the Empire of the Wolf. Exactly what had founded Torchwood._

_Meeting Sarah Jane Smith again._

_K-9 Mark III._

_The Krillitanes._

_Madame De Pompadour and the Doctor's immeasurable stupidity._

_The Parallel World, Pete Tyler and the Cybermen._

_Mickey deciding to stay in the Parallel World._

_The Wire._

_Krop-Tor, the planet defying every law of physics by orbiting a Black Hole._

_The Ood._

_The TARDIS vanishing._

_The terror at the thought of settling down._

_The Beast or the devil or whatever you wanted to call him._

_The Wire._

_Almost loosing Rose again._

_The weird and pathetic alien from Clom, the twin planet of Raxicorricophalapaturius._

_The Isolus child._

_The Ghosts. She knew all about that. She thought there was something wrong there._

_Torchwood._

_The Battle of Canary Wharf._

_Pete Tyler's world._

_Mickey and Jake and Jackie._

_Sending Rose off._

_Her coming back almost instantly. Dani could see that her loyalty to him was nothing short of remarkable._

_Loosing Rose._

_Saying goodbye and being cut off before he could tell her 'I love you' in response to her saying just that._

_His tears._

_Donna._

_Torchwood again. Did that damned organisation never end?_

_The Huon particles._

_The Racnoss._

_Drowning the children Racnoss._

_The snow._

'_Her name was Rose.'_

Dani looked over at the Doctor and grinned. 'Let's go,' she said.

'Go?' the Doctor asked.

'I'm reading you like a book,' she told him. 'You don't want a companion right now. But you do need one. Besides, I heard in 1599, Shakespeare wrote a play called "Loves Labour Won".'

'There's no such play,' the Doctor stated.

'Exactly,' Dani said. 'Now let's see why not.'

The Doctor grinned and he and Dani ran around the console, setting the coordinates.


	2. The Shakespeare Code

**What would happen if it turned out Rose's presence in the parallel world caused a misbalance?**

**(No Martha or Jones family in this one)**

Chapter 2: The Shakespeare Code

The TARDIS materialised and the Doctor and Dani stepped out.

'1599?' Dani asked.

'1599,' the Doctor agreed.

There was suddenly a yell from above and the Doctor and Dani stepped back as the contents of an Elizabethan toilet were dumped at their feet.

'Or thereabouts,' the Doctor said. 'Sorry about that.'

'Nah.' Dani shrugged. 'That's nothing. I once saw few psychos that kept welding themselves to each other. Girl I was with ended up in a mental institution 'cause she couldn't stop rambling about it.'

The Doctor chuckled sympathetically and led her on. 'We're right near Southwark,' he told her. 'Which means we're right next to the Globe. Strictly speaking though, it's not a globe. It's a tetradecagon. 14 sides.'

'Why 14?' Dani asked.

'No idea,' the Doctor answered. 'Never asked.'

'And you've met Shakespeare how many times?' Dani almost laughed.

'This will be the first time for him,' the Doctor answered.

XXX

The Doctor and Dani stood in among the crowd as Shakespeare came out.

'Isn't he supposed to be bald?' Dani asked as the crowd cheered.

'He's pretty young at the moment,' the Doctor answered.

'Shut your big, fat mouths!' Shakespeare yelled and Dani jumped.

The Doctor just chuckled. That was actually pretty funny, but, unfortunately, Shakespeare hadn't been talking to them specifically.

'Tomorrow night, we'll have a new play for you,' Shakespeare announced. 'Loves Labour Won!'

The Doctor and Dani looked at each other. Dani tapped her nose, telling the Doctor something in the air had changed an instant before he made the announcement. The Doctor nodded.

It was time to make a house call.

* * *

><p>Rose stood in front of Pete, Mickey and Jake.<p>

'About three years ago I was under the Salt Plains of Utah, in a museum owned by a man called Henry Van Statten,' Rose explained. 'He owns the internet. It was full of alien relics and he had a Dalek in there. He kept the relics there because he was scared of them and he protected them by hiring an entire army. He existed in my own dimensions, he'd definitely exist here.'

Pete nodded. 'Yeah. And he shouldn't be holding alien relics. Or Daleks. When did you remember this, Rosie?'

'While we were fighting the Slitheen,' Rose answered.

'So, we ought to take this guy out while we can,' Mickey said.

'First we ought to determine if he is there or not,' Jake added.

* * *

><p>'Mr. Shakespeare, isn't it?' the Doctor asked.<p>

'Oh no,' Shakespeare grumbled. 'No, no, no. Who let you in? No autographs, you can't have yourself sketched with me and please don't ask where I get my ideas from. Thanks for your interest, now be a good boy and shove…oh.'

He'd seen Dani.

XXX

Dani found it real amusing. The minute Shakespeare had seen her he'd kicked the actors out and asked her and the Doctor to sit down. Then, when the Doctor flashed him a wad of paper, he'd said, 'That paper's blank.'

'You really are a genius,' the Doctor responded.

'Optical illusion?' Dani asked. 'That doesn't work on smart people?'

'It works on smart people,' the Doctor responded. 'But not on geniuses.'

'Okay.' Dani crossed her arms and leaned back.

'What do you use it for?' Shakespeare asked. 'Generally.'

'Getting in places, getting past guards and getting out of trouble,' the Doctor answered.

'God knows you need it.' Dani laughed.

Shakespeare grinned at her. 'You're a very colourful woman, aren't you?'

'Dani comes from Fredonia,' the Doctor stated. 'People are more liberated there than they are here, especially women.'

'I've not heard of it,' Shakespeare commented. 'But it's nice to meet someone from a different place.'

'William Shakespeare!' an angry voice called from the doorway.

Shakespeare looked up and the Doctor and Dani twisted around and looked at the large bearded man standing in the doorway.

'Ah.' Shakespeare looked a little worried. 'Lanley.'

'This Loves Labour Won business!' Lanley snapped. 'I haven't seen it. Nothing is performed without passing through me.'

'You'll have it in the morning,' Shakespeare promised.

'I don't work to your schedule, you work to mine,' Lanley stated. 'Now give it to me.'

'It isn't finished,' Shakespeare insisted.

'Then it is cancelled,' Lanley stated. 'If it's the last thing I do, Loves Labour Won will never be played.'

It was only then that Dani noticed the worried-looking young girl to the side had neither a human life-force nor a human scent. Lanley walked out. Shakespeare leaned back.

'So, tell me about this Fredonia,' He asked Dani.

'Very sunny place in the day.' Dani leaned back too. 'And very dark and cold at night. Women who do wear skirts usually wear them fairly short and atheism is rather common.'

'Atheism?' Shakespeare asked.

'No religion,' Dani answered. 'A lot of people believe when you die. That's it, you're gone and nothing happens. I suppose you'd call it heathen.'

'Hm.' Shakespeare nodded, the concept seeming fascinating to him.

Their conversation was cut short by a scream from downstairs and all three leapt out of their seats and bolted for the source. Their feet carried them down to the courtyard where Lanley appeared to be choking on something.

'Stand back!' the Doctor called to everyone. 'I'm a doctor!'

Dani stopped short and watched as he ran over to Lanley. He checked him over before standing up and announcing that he died of a natural case of the humours. But the look in his eyes was one Dani knew well.

XXX

'Poor Lanley,' Shakespeare said. 'So many strange incidents. You, Doctor. A man who has no name. How can one so young have eyes so old?'

'I do a lot of reading,' the Doctor answered.

'A trite reply,' Shakespeare remarked. 'I do that, yeah. And you, Dani. You look at him as if you know everything and nothing at the same time. Where he's more of an enigma to me, he's more of a living paradox to you.'

Then Dolly Bailey came to the door. 'I've got a room for you, Sir Doctor. You must be tired from your journey.'

'I agree,' Dani said. 'I'm knackered.'

He could see she wasn't really. She'd just noticed something and she wanted to be away from human ears before she told him. She went ahead as the Doctor wandered after her. As he got to the door Shakespeare spoke, 'I bid you goodnight. I've a play to complete. But I'll find my answers tomorrow, Doctor.'

'All the world's a stage.' The Doctor quoted something he hadn't written yet.

'I might use that,' Shakespeare told him. 'Goodnight, Doctor.'

'Nighty-night, Shakespeare,' the Doctor responded.

XXX

'You got a toothbrush?' Dani asked as he came in.

'Um…' The Doctor patted his pockets before pulling out a toothbrush that looked like it was made out of yellow see-through plastic and handing it to her. 'Contains Venusian spearmint.'

'Don't need toothpaste, then?' Dani asked with a laugh in her voice.

'Nah.' The Doctor lay down on the bed as Dani started brushing her teeth.

'So, what do you really think?' Dani asked around the toothbrush. 'You had your "I'll-lie-to-them-so-they-won't-panic" face on when you told them it was a case of the humours.'

'This lot still have one foot in the Dark Ages,' the Doctor answered. 'If I told them the truth, they'd panic and think it was witchcraft.'

'Is it?' Dani asked.

'Looks like witchcraft, but it isn't,' the Doctor answered. 'It can't be.'

'Funny,' Dani commented. 'I know this girl that got possessed by her ancestor a few years ago. Her ancestor was prosecuted as a witch in Puritan America.'

'What'd her ancestor want?' the Doctor asked.

'I don't know.' Dani shrugged. 'Just to wreck destruction as far as I could tell.'

'And you're sure she was a witch?' the Doctor asked.

'Well, it's not every human that can destroy an entire town by staring at it,' Dani answered. She waved her hand to illustrate a town exploding. Then she frowned. 'Two questions though. Humans are not fitted for powers like that, so wouldn't they draw have to the powers from somewhere? And more importantly, where from?'

He looked directly at her and smiled partially proudly and partially sadly. She could see he was thinking about Rose. She'd probably say something like that to make him think about what he'd just thought about.

'You're right,' the Doctor said. 'Humans could never tap that power on their own. They'd have to draw it somewhere. I've got a feeling I know. But I want to be sure. Now, what did you see?'

Dani knew exactly what he meant. 'That girl. The young one that was in the room when Lanley came in and left a second after him. She wasn't human.'

The Doctor sat up. 'If she wasn't human, what was she?'

'Not a clue,' Dani said. 'I've never felt that life-force before. But she smelt about as old as the Time Lords.'

The Doctor's eyes narrowed in thought. 'An ancient race. How many more can you feel?'

Dani closed her eyes and concentrated for a moment. 'Two.'

Then there was a shill scream and Dani felt a Dolly Bailey's life-force blink out.

XXX

The Doctor ran in. Shakespeare had dozed off and just woke, lifting his head.

'Wha…?' he muttered.

The Doctor dropped down and checked Dolly's pulse and vitals. Her eyes were open and wide.

'She died of fright,' he stated.

Dani ran past him and looked out the window. 'Oh, real original!' she yelled to whatever was out there.

The Doctor ran over and looked out. 'What did you see?'

'A witch on a broomstick,' Dani answered.

Yelling was something his 6th form would've done. It made him proud to know Dani had used his influence.

* * *

><p>Everything was set. They were camping on top of the Salt Plains of Utah. It had been confirmed that Henry Van Statten, his army and his Museum of Aliens were indeed beneath the Plains.<p>

Rose shared her tent with Pete, Jake and Mickey, head of Torchwood. It had three compartments. The two separate sleeping compartments and the office compartment. Pete, Jake and Mickey shared one compartment and Rose had her own.

She'd long ago made a habit of carrying pictures of her friends around in her wallet because Shireen and Mickey constantly got lost in huge shopping complexes and she had to ask if people had seen them and their appearances were common enough that she needed photos. She remembered, with a painful pang, that the Doctor had found that pretty hilarious. In both forms. Now, she pulled out a picture of him and looked at it.

He'd been sitting on the console floor, fiddling with something. But when she'd snapped the photo he turned his head slightly and grinned a bit. She pressed a kiss to her first two fingers and then pressed them to the image's lips.

'Goodnight, Doctor,' she murmured, so it was barely audible, even to her.

* * *

><p>'The fact is, Lanley drowned on land and Dolly died of fright and they were both connected to you,' Dani told Shakespeare.<p>

'You're accusing me?' Shakespeare asked.

'No,' Dani said. 'But whoever is doing this, their motive, it's something to do with you. Maybe you've got something they want.'

'Me?' Shakespeare asked. 'But all I've got is words.'

'And maybe that's all they need,' the Doctor stated.

XXX

Shakespeare and Dani stood on the stage as the Doctor paced below.

'14 sides,' the Doctor mused. 'I've always wondered, but I've never asked. Why 14?'

'It's just the shape that Peter Streete thought best,' Shakespeare answered. 'Said it carried the acoustics well.'

'Peter Streete the architect?' Dani asked.

'Yeah,' Shakespeare answered.

'14,' the Doctor went on. 'Why does that ring a bell?'

'Well, if we're really dealing with witches,' Dani said, '14's like 7. Some people believe it has magical qualities.'

'True,' the Doctor agreed. 'Good point. Words and shapes following the same design. Fourteen sides, fourteen facets. Oh, my head. Tetradecagon. Think, think, think. Letters, numbers.'

'This is just the theatre,' Shakespeare stated.

'Oh, yeah.' The Doctor came to the stage. 'But the theatre's magic, isn't it? You should know. Stand on this stage, say the right words, with the right emphasis at the right time…oh, you can make men weep, or cry with joy…change them. You can change people's minds just with words in this place.' He turned around. 'And if you exaggerate that…' He turned around again. 'Tell you what. Peter Streete would know. Can I talk to him?'

'You could, but you won't get any answers,' Shakespeare agreed.

'Why not?' Dani asked.

'A month after finishing this place he lost his mind,' Shakespeare answered. 'Started going on about witches and things.'

'Where is he?' the Doctor asked.

'Bedlam,' Shakespeare answered.

'Bedlam?' Dani asked.

'Bethlam Hospital.' Shakespeare clarified. 'The Madhouse.'

'I wanna talk to Peter Streete,' The Doctor stated, turning and running.

Dani followed him and Shakespeare followed both of them.

'I'm coming,' he said. 'I want to witness this first-hand.' As they left the actors entered. 'Here's the script,' Shakespeare stated. 'As promised. Lots of teeth. The Queen might show up.' As he followed the Doctor and Dani he muttered, 'Doubt it. She never does.'

XXX

'You're married, aren't you?' Dani laughed as Shakespeare started flirting with her.

'Wife's not in town,' he commented, grinning. 'What are men like in Fredonia?'

'Not that much different from here,' Dani answered. 'Circumstances change, people don't.'

'Come on!' the Doctor called back. 'We can all have a good flirt later!'

'Is that a promise, Doctor?' Shakespeare teased.

'Ugh.' The Doctor groaned. 'Fifty-seven academics just punched the air. Now move!'

Dani just laughed.

XXX

'Do you want some entertainment, my Lord?' the guard asked. 'I can whip these men. They'd put on a good show.'

'No, I don't,' the Doctor snapped.

Dani kept her face neutral. The stench of fear was thick in the air. It made her want to gag in all honesty.

'I'll just make him decent for the lady,' the guard stated, moving off.

'Were you ever here as a patient?' Dani asked Shakespeare, knowing he had been anyway.

'Yeah.' Shakespeare answered, 'Not too long ago. My son was taken by the plague. I started questioning mortality, to be or not to be…oh. That's quite good.'

'You should use that,' the Doctor stated.

'Maybe not,' Shakespeare commented. 'A bit pretentious?'

'Not at all,' Dani responded.

That was when the guard called them to the cell.

XXX

The Doctor placed his hands on either side of Peter's head.

'Peter, I'm the Doctor,' he said. 'Now I want you to remember. Way back to a year ago when everything was nice and shiny. Everything that has happened since has since happened to someone else. It's just a story. A winter's tale.' He gently pushed Peter down. 'That's it,' he urged. 'Let go.'

The Doctor stood up.

'Tell me the story, Peter,' he said.

* * *

><p>'You can't do this! I am Henry Van Statten!' Van Statten insisted.<p>

'And we are Torchwood,' Rose stated, no mercy or weakness in her eyes. 'You're just a little boy that's playing with toys he shouldn't be touching. We're the adults that have to take them away, before someone gets killed.' She turned away from him. 'Take them all away. Wipe their memories and leave them in hospitals all over the world.'

She listened to the sounds of loud arguing as Van Statten and his people were dragged away. She gleefully watched Adam be dragged away. Then Jake's voice came over the com. link.

'_Bad Wolf. This is Preacher. Over.'_

'Go ahead, Preacher,' she answered it. 'What did you find? Over.'

'_We found the Dalek. Over.'_

'Good,' Rose told him. 'But I want to know if the Doctor has ever existed in this dimension. If he has, information about him will be in the Dalek's data banks. Over.'

'_Right,'_ Jake agreed. _'What do I do to find out? Over.'_

'Mention his name. Over.'

* * *

><p>'The witches spoke to Peter in the night,' Peter stated. 'They whispered, whispered. Got Peter to build the Globe to their design. Their design! The fourteen walls. Always…fourteen. When the work was done…' He let out a dry laugh. 'They…they snapped poor Peter's wits.'<p>

'But where did Peter see the witches?' the Doctor asked. 'Where in the city? Peter, tell me. You've got to tell me. Where were they?'

Peter looked at him. 'All Hallows Street.'

'Too many words!'

The Doctor whipped around. What he saw made him jump back in shock.

'A witch!' Shakespeare exclaimed. 'I'm seeing a witch!'

'One touch,' the "witch" wheezed. 'Just one touch to the heart.' She reached down and touched Peter over the heart.

'No!' the Doctor yelled when he saw what she was going to do.

But it was too late. Peter Streete was dead.

'Oh, oh.' The "witch" cackled. 'I'll stop your frantic hearts. Poor, fragile mortals. Who would die first, hmm?'

'No one,' Dani answered.

'So, it'll be you, hmm?' the "witch" asked her.

'Well.' The Doctor stepped forward. 'If you're looking for volunteers.'

'You know what she is?' Dani asked.

Shakespeare gave her a look.

'"Witch" is too weak a word,' she explained. 'She's not even human. She doesn't come from Earth.'

'Doctor, can you stop her?' Shakespeare asked.

'No mortal has power over me,' the "witch" gloated.

'No, but there's power in words,' the Doctor responded. 'If I can find the right one. If I can just know you…'

'None on Earth had knowledge of us,' the "witch" stated.

Dani smirked.

'Then it's a good thing I'm here,' the Doctor said. 'Now, think, think, think. Humanoid, female, uses shapes and words to channel energy…Ah! 14! That's it! 14! The 14 stars of Rexel Planetary Configuration! Creature I name you…Carrionite!'

The Carrionite screamed and vanished.

'The power in a name,' Dani stated. 'Is that where witches draw their power from?'

'That's old magic,' the Doctor answered. 'It's another kind of science. The human race uses mathematics. Give the right string of numbers, the right equation, you could split the atom. Carrionites use words instead.'

'Use them for what?' Shakespeare asked.

'The end of the world.'

* * *

><p>Jake walked into the room where the Dalek was being held, gun at the ready.<p>

'Know anyone called the Doctor?' he asked into the darkness.

'Doc-tor…?' Two lights lit up as the Dalek spoke. '…does not register.'

The whole area lit up as someone behind him hit the lights.

'Just checking,' Jake said an instant before firing.

He watched in satisfaction as the Dalek was blown to bits. Then he left the room and called Rose up on the com. link.

'Bad Wolf. This is Preacher. Over.'

'_Did it know the Doctor?'_ Rose's response was all business. _'Over.'_

Not that he could blame her. He remembered when Rickey died. It'd hurt so damn much. But Rose loved the Doctor more than he'd ever loved Rickey. She'd do anything to get back to him.

'I'm afraid not,' Jake said. 'His name didn't register.'

'Okay.' She sighed. 'Get back up here with the rest of us. Over.'

* * *

><p>'The Carrionites vanished at the Dawn of the Universe,' the Doctor explained as Shakespeare washed his face. 'No one could decide if they were real or legend.'<p>

'Well, I'm going for real,' Shakespeare stated.

'So, what do they want?' Dani asked.

'A new Empire on Earth,' the Doctor answered. 'A world of blood and bones and witchcraft.'

'And there's power in words,' Dani concluded. 'They need the right words in the right shape at the right time with the right emphasis.'

'Yes, they do,' the Doctor agreed, looking at Shakespeare. 'And I'm looking at the man with the words.'

'Me?' Shakespeare asked. 'But I've done nothing.'

'Not consciously,' Dani said.

'What happens at the end of the play?' the Doctor asked.

'Uh…' Shakespeare looked thoughtful. 'The guys get the girls. It's all as funny and thought-provoking as usual…except those last few lines. Funny thing is, I don't remember writing them.'

The Doctor and Dani looked at each other.

XXX

'They're somewhere in this street,' Dani told the Doctor as the walked into the street.

'Are you sure there's only three?' the Doctor asked.

'Reasonably,' Dani answered. 'Two of them are already at the Globe. But one's still here.'

'But which house?' the Doctor asked. The door of the house right in front of them opened. 'Make that Witch House,' The Doctor quipped.

They both headed inside.

XXX

'You're a Carrionite, I presume?' Dani asked, as she followed the Doctor in.

'Yes, I am,' the young-looking Carrionite answered. 'Strange. Neither of you are human.'

'And neither are you,' Dani retorted. 'What are you doing here?'

'What are you doing here?' she asked.

'Saving the world,' Dani answered.

The Carrionite smirked and pointed. 'This one's out of her time. I gaze upon this girl on a penny, hence I name you, Dani.'

Dani yelled out in pain and dropped to her knees. The Doctor dropped down next to her and wrapped an arm around her shoulders, gently laying her on the ground, as he did when she was a child.

'A strong mind and a strong will,' the Carrionite remarked. 'Rare to meet one who can take our powers.'

The Doctor's eyes hadn't left her. 'There are more out there than you could ever understand.'

'And you…' She pointed at him. 'Strange. There is no name. Why would a man hide his title in such despair.'

'The naming won't work on me,' he stated.

'There's still one name that has the power,' she announced.

'No, there isn't,' the Doctor argued.

'But your heart grows cold,' the Carrionite taunted. 'A north wind blows and carries down the distant…Rose.'

Anger flared in the Doctor as he stood up and angrily marched over to her. 'Oh, big mistake,' he snapped. 'Because that's the one name that keeps me fighting. The Carrionites vanished! Where did you go?'

'The Eternals found the right word to banish us into deep darkness,' the Carrionite stated, turning away.

'Then, how did you escape?' the Doctor asked.

'New words.' The Carrionite turned back to him. 'New, and glittering. From a mind like no other.'

'Shakespeare,' the Doctor murmured, then looked into the cauldron as an image of Shakespeare appeared, looking distraught and the Carrionite spoke again.

'His son perished. The grief of a genius. Grief without measure. Madness enough to allow us entrance.'

'How many of you?' the Doctor asked.

'Just the three,' the Carrionite answered curtly. 'But the play tonight shall restore the rest. The Human race will be purged as pestilence. And from this world, we will lead the Universe back into the old ways of blood and magic.'

'Hm.' The Doctor cleared his throat. 'Busy schedule. But first, you'll have to get past me.'

'Well then,' she whispered seductively, coming very close and pushing her fingers through his hair. 'I'm lucky my enemy comes in such a handsome package.'

'Now that is one bit of magic that is definitely not going to work on me,' he told her.

Then there was a snip as she pulled away and the Doctor's hand flew to where she'd cut some hair from.

'Hey!' he exclaimed. 'What…? Give that back.' He ran at her and she jumped out the window. 'Oh, that's just cheating,' he remarked.

'Men, to Carrionites, are merely puppets,' the Carrionite stated, pulled out a straw doll and twisting the Doctor's hair around its neck.

'You may call that magic,' the Doctor stated. 'But I call that a DNA replication model.'

'Goodbye, Doctor!' the Carrionite cackled, jamming a needle into the model's heart.

The Doctor cried out and collapsed and she flew off.

XXX

Dani waited until the Carrionite flew off before she got up. Coming from the ultimate warrior race, she could quickly recover from pain and be all right within a few minutes. She walked over to the Doctor and crouched down beside his prone form.

'So, how long are you going to lay there?' she asked.

'Can't fool you, can I?' he asked in a jocular tone.

'I've known you way too long,' Dani answered. 'But you probably still can.'

The Doctor laughed and started to stand up, but only got half-way before he cried out in pain and stumbled back to his hands and knees.

'I've only got one heart working!' he exclaimed, before looking at Dani. 'How do you people cope?'

'Which one do I have to hit?' Dani asked.

'Left.' He moved his arm so she could access it.

Dani whacked him in the chest, over his left heart and he bent over.

'Now the back!' he yelled.

She whacked his back, over the left heart.

'Ah!' The Doctor jumped up and cracked his back.

'Bada-boom-ba!' he yelled. 'Nice work. Let's go!'

They ran out of the house.

XXX

'Stop the play,' the Doctor reproached Shakespeare. 'Yeah, I think that was it. I said, _stop the play_!'

'I hit my head…' he responded weakly.

'Yeah, don't rub it,' the Doctor answered. 'You'll go bald.'

XXX

'But…these Carrionite phrases!' Shakespeare yelled over the noise. 'They require such precision!'

'You're William Shakespeare!' the Doctor yelled back. 'If anyone can do it, you can! Think, when you're in your study words just come to you, they're like magic. You're the one man that can stop them! Now, do it!' He pushed Shakespeare forward.

'Close up this den of hateful, dire decay!' Shakespeare yelled. 'Decomposition of your witches' plot! You thieve my brains, consider me your toy! My doting Doctor tells me I am not! Foul Carrionite spectres, cease your show! Between the points…' He looked back at the Doctor.

'7-6-1-3-9-0!' the Doctor called.

'7-6-1-3-9-0!' Shakespeare repeated, 'Banished like a tinker's cuss! I say to thee…' He looked at the Doctor.

'Uh…' He looked at Dani and she said the first thing that came into her head.

'Expelliarmus!'

'Expelliarmus!' the Doctor repeated.

'Expelliarmus!' Shakespeare concluded.

'Good old J.K.!' the Doctor yelled as the Carrionites seemed to implode and vanish.

It took a few seconds but soon the applause started.

XXX

Shakespeare looked up at the Doctor. 'All these years I've been the cleverest man around. Next to you, I know nothing.'

'I wouldn't complain,' Dani told him.

'I'm not,' Shakespeare answered. 'It's marvellous.'

'Well, good.' Dani laughed.

'Anyway, time we were off,' the Doctor stated. 'I've got a nice attic in the TARDIS where this lot can scream for all eternity and I've got to get Dani back to Fredonia.'

'You mean travel on through time and space?' Shakespeare asked with a knowing look in his eyes.

'You what?' the Doctor's eyes widened.

Dani's eyebrows flew up.

'You're from another world, like the Carrionites,' Shakespeare stated. 'Both of you and you're also from the future. It's not hard to work out.'

'That's…incredible,' the Doctor murmured. 'You are incredible.'

'We're alike in many ways, Doctor.'

XXX

'What'd you do to brass her off?' Dani yelled as they ran.

'Don't know!' the Doctor responded. 'Something to look forward to.'

'Yeah, really,' Dani agreed as she ran into the TARDIS.

The Doctor quickly followed.

* * *

><p>'Look mummy!' Tony yelled, pointing. 'Daddy and Rose and Unca Mickey are coming home!'<p>

'Yeah, I see them, sweetheart,' Jackie told him.

They watched the truck come up the drive.

XXX

When Rose walked into her room, she found Carly propped up on the bed. Carly had long chocolate brown hair and green eyes. From what Rose could tell, she came from a rich family. Carly looked at her.

'You're getting desperate,' Carly commented.

'No, I'm not,' Rose argued.

'No, you're not.' Carly frowned, 'That's just what they want me to say.'

Rose frowned. Whatever Carly had to do, she didn't like it.

'What do they want you to do?' Rose asked.

'They want me to remove your soul from your body and temporarily tie it to the Doctor,' Carly said. 'That means you'll have no communication at all. You won't be able to touch each other and he'll neither see nor hear you.'

'Then why send me like that?' Rose asked.

'They didn't tell me,' Carly answered. 'But if we don't do it you'll probably never see him again. One or both of you will die before you can.'

'How can anything that does that be good?' Rose asked.

'With difficulty,' Carly answered.

'What about my body?' Rose asked. 'When I'm in there, I mean.'

'It'll be like you're asleep,' Dani answered. 'Except you won't be able to be woken up. And there'll also be the briefing.'

'Briefing?' Rose asked.

'We'll talk properly in the higher plains, then I'll send you down there and you'll be like an unnoticed ghost,' Carly explained.

'How long will I be unconscious for?' Rose asked.

'To this world?' Carly responded. 'A few hours. Not long enough to scare them.'

Rose looked her right in the eye. 'All right.'


	3. Gridlock

**What would happen if it turned out Rose's presence in the parallel world caused a misbalance?**

**(No Martha or Jones family in this one)**

Chapter 3: Gridlock

'Okay.' The Doctor grinned. 'If you're going to stay, you may as well have your old room back.'

'Cool.' Dani nodded.

'Right,' the Doctor said. 'Where do you wanna go now?'

'Let's go somewhere in the future,' Dani suggested. 'Say, another planet?'

'All right.' He grinned. 'I know just where to go.'

He ran around the console setting the coordinates and a few seconds later the column stopped moving.

'What planet are we on?' Dani asked.

'New Earth,' the Doctor answered. 'It's five billion years in the future.' He bounced towards the door, pulling on his overcoat and talking as he went, 'We're in New New York. Though, technically, it's the fifteenth New York since the original. So that makes it New New New New New New New New New New New New New New New York.'

'Y'know, this form's a real motor mouth,' Dani remarked.

The Doctor just grinned.

'So, how does it look?' Dani asked.

'See for yourself.' The Doctor pushed the door open and Dani walked out…

Right into a downpour. She looked up. 'I can't see any clouds or trace of sky.' Then she opened her mouth and caught some rain. 'And this rain's artificial.'

'Really?' the Doctor asked, sticking out his tongue and catching some droplets on it before pulling it back in.

'So it is,' he agreed. 'Now, why would that be?'

The downpour suddenly stopped and Dani stepped out.

'A shelter?' she mused. 'I can see as far up as there is here. It looks like it's made of metal.'

'That's a problem.' The Doctor went over to a wall-TV and using the Sonic to turn it on.

Dani followed him and he hit it a few times, then it sparked to life and an image of cars flying over an ocean and a large city came to life.

'Ah! That's more like it!' He chuckled. 'That's the view we had last time. This must be the lower levels. Down the base of the tower. Some sort of under-city.'

'You brought Rose here?' Dani asked, looking up at him.

'Um, yeah,' he answered. 'Yeah, I did, yeah.'

'Does it help?' Dani asked.

'Does what help?' the Doctor asked, looking at her.

'Coming back to the places you took her.' She was looking up at him, sincerely concerned.

'I don't know,' he murmured.

Dani looked back at the screen and noticed something. 'Freeze the frame.'

The Doctor used the Sonic to freeze the frame and Dani squinted for a moment before looking at him.

'This is pre-recorded,' she told him.

'Is it?' he asked, looking closer.

Dani tapped the screen. 'That's you on the apple grass. And I reckon the light-haired girl you're with is Rose.'

The Doctor glanced at her and adjusted the setting on the Sonic Screwdriver. Then he used it to zoom into where, if Dani was right, the image of Rose and himself should be. She wasn't wrong.

There they were. The sort of thing a human would never notice in a million years. Something he wouldn't have noticed if he hadn't been looking for it. And the sort of thing only Dani would catch without even meaning to. Before anything more could be said one of the stalls opened.

'Customers!' the woman yelled.

And two more opened. All three started yelled the benefits of whatever they were selling to the Doctor and Dani.

'Not interested,' Dani stated, before turning to the Doctor. 'I say we shoot up to the Senate. They ought to have an explanation for this.'

They walked through the stalls and headed up. As they got to the top of the first flight Dani turned and stared into the shadows, her eyes drilling holes into the guy and girl that had started following them. They realised they'd been spotted and ran in the other direction.

'Good,' Dani said. 'Wonder what they wanted.'

'Who'd you see?' the Doctor asked as they continued up.

'One guy and one girl,' Dani answered. 'They were pretty young. Early 20's I'd say. I think the girl was preggers.'

* * *

><p>To Rose, the place looked like the console room of the TARDIS. She sat in the pilot's seat with her legs tucked underneath her. Carly walked in like she'd done it a million times before, looked around and nodded in amusement.<p>

'Figures that your personal idea of heaven would be the TARDIS.' She laughed good-naturedly. 'The place you think of as home. That very feeling of security is what created this. And the Doctor won't be coming in. But if he did, he'd just be another part of your personal idea of heaven.'

'But, according to you, I'm going to see him again soon anyway,' Rose pointed out.

'Yes, you are,' Carly said. 'But first I have to brief you on the whole operation. It sucks, but it has to be done.'

'What do I have to know?' Rose asked.

'Like I said, you'll be tied to the Doctor,' Carly answered. 'That will last from when he lands to when he leaves. You'll also get to see Dani and hear his thoughts. But only his. No one else's. Apparently, the point of this exercise is to demonstrate to you exactly how much he needs you. He never got the chance to say "I love you" to you that day on the beach. And everyone knows that actions speak louder than words. Well, that's what they said to me. Pain in the butt, if you ask me.'

'I agree with you,' Rose responded. 'But, why do I get the feeling there's something else you want to tell me?'

'He's taught you well,' Carly remarked.

* * *

><p>'You're dressed pretty well for hitchhikers,' the humanoid cat told the Doctor and Dani.<p>

'That's a long and frankly unbelievable story,' Dani stated. Then she glanced down.

'What's wrong?' the Doctor asked.

'There's something down there,' Dani said.

* * *

><p>'Do you remember what happened on the Gamestation when you returned?' Carly asked.<p>

'Bits and pieces,' Rose answered. 'It's been slowly coming back to me.'

Carly nodded, 'What do you remember? You know, besides killing the Emperor and the entire Dalek army.'

'A gold glow,' Rose answered. 'And singing. I think it was the TARDIS. And pain. The Doctor said "I think you need a Doctor" and then he kissed me. And I can remember every second of that kiss. But I fainted afterwards. The kiss did something, but I don't know what.'

'The Doctor absorbed the Time Vortex out of you when he kissed you,' Carly explained. 'Which is romantic in a fatal kind of way. It would've killed you if he hadn't. That's why he had to regenerate.'

'Well, why didn't he tell me?' Rose asked.

'Do you really need to ask?' Carly responded.

Rose smiled sadly. She was right. She already knew. He'd known it would come back in time. And it was. He'd known how guilty she'd feel over the whole thing. And she did. He hadn't wanted to hurt her. And he hadn't. He hadn't wanted her to think it was all her fault. But she did.

'But, not even a Time Lord can remove all of that raw power,' Carly stated. 'There's still a little bit left in you. Over the past year and two months, it's been changing you. You've been morphing. I want you to think. When you spoke to Reinette, what did you hear everytime she spoke?'

'An echo,' Rose answered. 'I barely noticed it. But it was a weird echo. I thought I was just tired.' Her eyes widened in realisation. 'I was hearing her speak French!'

'Exactly,' Carly agreed. 'You were hearing her speak French behind the translated English. That was a Translation Cortex developing in your brain. It didn't hurt because it was only translation. The most basic change.' She paused. 'That Translation Cortex is now fully developed. So, now, when it comes to translation, you and the Doctor see the world the same. That was the first of three stages: Basic, Mental and Physical. As they go on, they get more painful. But between each stage, there's a lull. This is the first lull and we're going to use it to check on the Doctor.'

'And we're using the second lull to get me home?' Rose asked.

'You're not just a pretty face.' Carly laughed. 'But there is more to it, than that.'

* * *

><p>'Do you two do this a lot?' Brannigan asked.<p>

'Somebody has to,' Dani answered.

'Coming, Dani?' the Doctor asked.

'Right behind you.'

'Allonsy!'

The Doctor jumped down and Dani followed.

'They're completely insane,' Valerie remarked.

'That,' Brannigan agreed. 'And a bit magnificent.'

XXX

The Doctor used the Sonic Screwdriver to open the hatch. He jumped down and Dani followed.

'Who the hell are you?' the driver asked.

'Sorry.' The Doctor spoke quickly as he worked on the bottom hatch. 'Motorway foot patrol. We're doing a survey. How're you enjoying your motorway?'

'Well, not very much,' the driver answered. 'Junction 5 has been closed for three years.'

'Thank you, your comments have been noted,' the Doctor chirped. 'Have a nice day!'

He jumped down and Dani followed him.

XXX

The Doctor, Dani and the suited man looked down below.

'What the hell is that?' the suited man asked.

'Macra,' the Doctor answered.

'Macra?' Dani asked. 'Is that the Macra I think it is?'

'Yup.' The Doctor nodded.

'I guess that's what happens to tyrants.' Dani shrugged.

'What are you two on about?' asked the suited man. 'What are Macra?'

'Were,' Dani corrected.

'The Macra used to be the scourge of this galaxy,' the Doctor explained.

'Gas,' Dani added.

'They fed off gas,' the Doctor elaborated. 'The filthier the better. They put up a small empire using humans as slaves and mining gas for food.'

'They don't exactly look like empire-builders to me,' the suited man stated.

'That's because they did it billions of years ago,' Dani responded.

'They must have devolved down here,' the Doctor stated. 'Now they're just beasts. But they're hungry and there are people down there.'

'That's what I sensed.' Dani wrinkled her nose. 'And now that we're close, I can smell it too.'

Suddenly the top hatch opened again and a humanoid cat dropped in.

'I've invented a sport!' the Doctor exclaimed, delighted.

Dani sniggered.

'You're a hard man to find, Doctor,' the cat told him.

'No guns!' the suited man exclaimed. 'I'm not having guns!'

'I only brought this in case of pirates,' the cat insisted. 'Doctor, you've got to come with me.'

'Do I know you?' the Doctor asked.

'You haven't aged at all,' the cat answered. 'Time has been less kind to me.'

'Novice Hame!' The Doctor hugged her for a moment before seeming to remember something and pushing her away and becoming hostile. 'No, hold on. Get off. Last time we met you were breeding humans for experimentation.'

Dani leaned on the Doctor's shoulder. 'That's a hell of a thing to forget, boss.'

'I sought forgiveness, Doctor,' Novice Hame responded. 'For so many years, under his guidance, and if you come with me, I might finally be able to redeem myself.'

'I'm not going anywhere!' he stated. 'You've got Macra living underneath this city! Macra!'

'You've got to come with me right now,' Novice Hame insisted.

'Why?' the Doctor demanded.

'I'm sorry, Doctor, this situation is even worse than you can imagine,' Novice Hame answered, grabbing his wrist and teleporting them, Dani included as she was still leaning on the Doctor's shoulder.

XXX

All three landed on the ground.

'Ow.' The Doctor groaned. 'Rough teleport.'

All three stood up.

'Now, I want you to go back out there and teleport everyone out,' he stated.

'I only had enough energy for one trip,' Novice Hame explained.

'Are we in the Senate?' Dani asked, recognising the outlines of the structures around them.

'Yes,' Novice Hame answered, turning the lights on by her wristband.

The Senate was littered with skeletons that had lost all the flesh and organs. It was what was left of the Senate. The Doctor and Dani looked around in horror.

'They died, Doctor,' Novice Hame explained. 'The city died.'

'How long's it been like this?' the Doctor asked.

'24 years,' Novice Hame answered.

'All of them?' Dani asked. 'Everyone?'

'What happened?' the Doctor asked.

'A new chemical,' Novice Hame answered. 'A new mood. They called it Bliss.' She picked up the mood from the nearest skeleton's neck. 'Everyone tried it. They couldn't stop. A virus mutated inside the compound and became airborne. Everything perished. Even the virus, in the end. It killed the world in seven minutes flat. There was just enough time to close down the walkways and the flyovers, sealing off the under-city. Those people on the motorways aren't lost, Doctor. They were saved.'

'So the whole thing down there's running on automatic,' the Doctor murmured.

'There's not enough power to get them out,' Novice Hame explained. 'We did all we could to stop the system from choking.'

'Who's "we"?' Dani asked. 'How are you still alive?'

'He protected me,' Novice Hame told Dani. Then she turned to the Doctor again. 'And he has waited for you, these long years.'

'Doctor.' An ancient voice rang through their minds.

The Doctor, turned and ran towards the voice, followed by Dani and Novice Hame.

'The Face of Boe!' he exclaimed.

Dani noticed something about the Face of Boe as the Doctor knelt next to the tank.

'I knew you would come,' the Face of Boe told the Doctor.

'Back in the old days, I was made his nurse as penance for my sin,' Novice Hame explained.

'Old friend, what's happened to you?' the Doctor asked, gently.

'A failing,' the Face of Boe answered.

'He protected me from the virus by shrouding me in his smoke,' Novice Hame told them. 'But with no one to maintain it, the city's power died. The under-city would have fallen into the sea.'

'So he saved them.' Dani nodded.

'The Face of Boe wired himself into the mainframe,' Novice Hame agreed. 'He's giving his life-force just to keep things running.'

Dani looked at the Face of Boe, mutated by age. _Good thing he's got so much of it, _she thought. The Doctor turned to Novice Hame.

'But there are planets out there!' he insisted. 'You could have called for help!'

Novice Hame shook her head. 'The last act of the Senate was to declare New Earth unsafe. The automatic quarantine lasts for 100 years.'

'So the two of you stayed here, on your own, for all these years,' the Doctor concluded.

'We had no choice,' Novice Hame responded.

He put a hand on her shoulder. 'Yes, you did.'

'Save them, Doctor,' the Face of Boe begged. 'Save them.'

* * *

><p>'And that's what's going to happen?' Rose asked. 'We'll be able to be together forever?'<p>

'Yeah,' Carly answered, before adding, mostly to herself. 'And it'll be better too.'

'How do you mean?' Rose asked.

'Nothing much,' Carly answered. 'Just that the result of "together forever" will be better that the results the last time I heard that phrase.'

Rose smiled. She quickly decided it was none of her business what had happened. 'So, for the next six months, I'm going to have headaches that'll first be really bad, but will get better with time?'

'Yes,' Carly answered. 'And when they're gone, you'll feel the Rift start to open. Go to it when that happens and jump off a building and into it.'

'What'll happen?' Rose asked.

'I'll meet you there,' Carly explained. 'They I'll take you back to London and we'll go from there.'

'When do I get to see the Doctor?' Rose asked.

'That depends,' Carly told her.

'On what?' Rose asked.

'On what you do,' Carly answered. 'The Doctor will have a problem when you arrive. I won't be able to stick around, because at that point I'll have to go save a Universe from collapsing. When that lull is over the pain will return, but this time it will be ripping through your entire body. You won't be able to move very much, so you've got to set everything up before the Doctor gets back and before it starts. But, I will explain it to you when we're going.'

'Why can't you explain it to me now?' Rose asked. 'Wouldn't that be easier than waiting?'

'I agree with that,' Carly said. 'But I can't because it's against the rules and the Powers stink. If I tell you before I'm meant to, both Universes will die. This one and that one.'

'And how long do you have to do this?' Rose asked, referring to knowing everything constantly and only being able to say very little and do next to nothing about it. Even a week of that would drive Rose mad.

'In total?' Carly responded. '100 years.'

'And you don't go mad from frustration?' Rose asked. 'You know everything, you know how to stop everything, but you're restricted in what you can say and do. It's enough to drive anyone mad!'

'I just amuse myself,' Carly answered. 'Why do you think I act like a child? Ever pour oatmeal on someone's head because they were ticking you off. And worse yet, I'd mixed slime and rotten fruit in.'

Rose smiled. 'That seems a bit severe.'

'Kidding?' Carly laughed. 'He almost destroyed our entire dimension because that's how much of a sore loser he was.'

'Was?' Rose asked.

'He started this major battle,' Carly explained. 'He had lost a girl to this other guy.'

'Wait,' Rose interrupted her. 'An entire dimension was almost destroyed because he lost a girl to another guy.'

'It's a pretty old story,' Carly said distastefully. 'Anyway, this first guy starts a massive battle. He gets killed in it and the guy he's trying to kill survives.'

'Karma.' Rose chuckled.

'That was my reaction too.'

* * *

><p>'The transformers are blocked!' the Doctor yelled. 'Signal can't get through!'<p>

'Doctor,' the Face of Boe called him.

'Yeah,' he called back. 'Hold on. Not now.'

'I give you my last…' He breathed out and Dani felt the life-force lessen. _He's dying!_ she thought in anguish. _I can't believe he's actually dying! _The power flashed back on.

'Hey, you two look after him!' the Doctor called. 'Don't you go dying on me, you big ol' face! You gotta see this! The open road! Hah!'

XXX

Novice Hame screamed. The Doctor twisted around as Dani stepped back. The glass casing of the Face of Boe was cracking. He looked at Dani. The pain in her eyes was enough to tell him. She'd met the Face of Boe before now and she'd become friends with him. The casing shattered and the Face of Boe fell to the ground.

'You gave your life-force for the city,' Dani breathed. 'All of it.'

'And now he's dying,' Novice Hame murmured.

'No, don't say that.' The Doctor knelt by him. 'Not old Boe. Plenty of life left.'

'It's good to breathe air once more,' the Face of Boe murmured. 'Everything has its time. You know that, old friend, better than most. And you know I have something to tell you.'

'Don't,' the Doctor told him. 'There's no need for that.'

'The legend says the Face of Boe will speak his final secret to a traveller,' Novice Hame stated.

'Yeah, but not yet,' the Doctor said. 'Who needs secrets, eh?'

'I have seen so much,' the Face of Boe told him. 'Perhaps too much. I am the last of my kind. As you are the last of yours, Doctor.'

'That's why we have to survive,' the Doctor told him, his voice breaking. 'Both of us. Don't go.'

I must,' the Face of Boe told him. 'But, know this, Time Lord: You Are Not Alone.' He closed his eyes for the last time and Novice Hame broke down crying.

The Doctor stood up and wrapped an arm around Dani, putting his hand to hers to stop her rubbing at her heavy tears so hard, trying to remove them.

* * *

><p>'All right.' Carly looked thoughtful. 'Did I miss anything?' She looked down, 'Let's see. Invisible, incorporeal, inaudible, hear his thoughts, Manhattan, 1930, metamorphosis, the stages, why I can't tell her.' She looked up at her. 'Nope!' she chirped. 'Got it all!'<p>

'So, I'll be seeing him now?' Rose asked hopefully, sitting forward in the seat and trying not to fidget.

'Yeah,' Carly answered.

Rose stood up and looked Carly right in the eye. 'Where and when?'

'New York,' Carly said. 'November 1st, 1930. Now, close your eyes, otherwise, you'll get a premature migraine.'

Rose Tyler closed her eyes.

* * *

><p>'New New York can start again,' the Doctor said. 'And they've got Novice Hame.'<p>

'Just what every city needs.' Dani laughed. 'Cats in charge.'

The Doctor joined Dani laughing. Dani waited until the trailed off before she asked, 'Can I ask you a personal question?'

He looked at her. 'Depends what it is.'

'When the TARDIS was telling me about what happened…' she began. 'She told me you actually were social with Rose's mother, after you regenerated into this form. You don't do families. You only talked to Ace's mother when you had to: once. What was it about Rose that made you do families where she was concerned?'

The Doctor turned and stared at her for a minute. 'Everything. You became the way you are because I'm the one that raised you. She was like you. That's what first drew my attention. But she was like that naturally. It came from a father she'd never met. There was something about her…something I could never put a name to. Something that I still can't put a name to. Something that made me fall in love with her. I've never felt that way about anyone before.'

'Then Torchwood took her.' Dani nodded.

'It wasn't just Torchwood,' the Doctor told her. 'It was also the Daleks.'

Dani froze. 'Daleks?'

'A Void Sphere,' the Doctor explained. 'She's trapped in an Alternate Dimension. I could have gotten her back very easily in the old days.'

Dani cocked her head. 'The Time Lords would've killed her. Maybe its better they aren't around.'

He looked at her and nodded. Dani shrugged.

'Anyway.' She changed the topic. 'Let's go.'

* * *

><p>Carly Alice watched Rose close her eyes, and then sent her to the Doctor, watching her fade away. Now she only had to make sure they ended up in the right place. With that thought, she reached into her jeans pocket and fished out her cell phone. She was an American, but that wasn't really relevant. She looked through the speed-dial.<p>

Then she called Dani's number.

* * *

><p>Dani's phone rang as the Doctor launched them up into the Time Vortex and she answered. 'Hello?'<p>

'_Hey, Dani.'_ Came the response. _'It's Carly. Look, I need you to go to November 1__st__, 1930, New York.'_

'Why?' Dani asked. 'What's there?'

'_Wouldn't you like to know.'_ Carly almost groaned in irritation.

'You're not allowed to tell, are you?' Dani laughed.

'_It's not funny,'_ Carly told her, but there was a laugh in her voice.

'It really is,' Dani argued, still laughing. 'You going to meet us there?'

'_Nah,'_ Carly answered. _'Busy century. Things to do.'_

'Huh!' Dani scoffed. 'What is it with you lot? The Doctor says "busy life, things to do" and you say "busy century, things to do".'

The Doctor heard this and burst out laughing. Carly was also laughing on the other end of the line. Dani groaned in annoyance.

'All right,' she almost whined. 'I'll catch you later, but the next time I see you, I better hear a damn good explanation for this.'

'_Yes, ma'am,'_ chirped Carly. _'See you around.'_

'Bye.' Dani hung up the phone.

'What was that all about?' the Doctor asked.

'Ah…Carly Alice,' Dani answered. 'She the Sovereign of the 21st Century and an… interdimensional traveller. But she can't do anything without the say-so from "the Powers That Be" or whatever.'

'Why?' the Doctor asked.

'She's the last option,' Dani explained. 'If she doesn't get done what they say the Universe, or Universes, involved collapse or crumble or something like that.'

'And she just told you to do something?' the Doctor asked.

'Yeah,' Dani answered. 'But she wants you there too.'

'Me?' he asked. 'Oh, brilliant.' His tone was sarcastic.

'If it helps, she hates her job,' Dani told him. 'Except, it's not really a job. It's more of a calling.'

'No choice, huh?' the Doctor asked. 'How'd you meet her?'

Dani chuckled. 'That's actually a pretty funny story. There were these headless corpses showing up all over town, so I went to check it out. Surprisingly, it didn't take me long to find them. Problem was, they weren't any alien species I recognised. Turned out they weren't alien at all. They were actually demons from Carly's dimension that were coming here.'

'Why were they coming here?' the Doctor asked.

'They found out this was the only dimension where the chemical used to kill them doesn't exist,' Dani answered. 'So they came here hoping to feed on the flesh and bones of humanity.'

'And how did they get here?' the Doctor asked.

'Magic,' Dani answered. 'In that dimension magic is as real and easily harnessed as science. And, as a result, it has consequences. The bigger the spell, the bigger the consequences. But, that's off topic. Anyway, they used magic to come here and Carly's Clan came after them in an attempt to stop them.'

'Clan?' the Doctor asked.

'Yeah,' Dani said. 'Carly told me, that back in the Stone Age, two separate Clans teamed up to fight demons and they've been together ever since. They're called the RA Clan and they're made up of the Rogue family and the Alice Family. You can't run into a Rogue without running into an Alice too.'

'The Stone Age.' The Doctor nodded. 'That's a long time to stay together.'

'That's what I said.' Dani laughed. 'And if you meet them and see them interact, you see how they've stayed together for so long.'

'And what about this "Sovereign" thing?' the Doctor asked. 'Never heard of that.'

'The Sovereign is circulated once every turn of the century,' Dani explained. 'The Powers That Be apparently have a group of candidates and pick the one best suited for the position based on experience and character. Then, when the selected child is 8, they go around with the current Sovereign for a year.'

'What kind of person do they look for to be the next Sovereign?' the Doctor asked.

'Insightful,' Dani answered. 'A person who comes from a stable family, helps if they have experience with the supernatural. It also helps if the person's level-headed, rational, responsible and resourceful. Being smart helps too.'

The Doctor nodded. 'What's the Sovereign's job exactly?'

'To preserve all reality,' Dani answered. 'No dimension dies without her say-so. And those are her words, exactly.'

The Doctor laughed at that. 'Good to know there's someone to do that. I'd hate it if I had to add that onto my list of "things to do".'

'Yeah.' Dani laughed.

'So, what's Carly? Human?' the Doctor asked.

'Stone Age thing give it away?' Dani chuckled.

'Just a little,' the Doctor asked. 'Did she tell you why the Sovereign's human?'

'Yeah, she did,' Dani said. 'They need something that's constant in either form or race in all dimensions. And that something is humans, for some weird reason. Why is that?'

'Because humans are survivors,' the Doctor answered. 'They were late to evolve, but they're the longest-living race in all time. They do anything to survive.'

'Hm,' Dani murmured. 'Good for them.'

'Not always so good for other races,' The Doctor remarked.

'True.' Dani nodded.

'But, human brains aren't built for that kind of input,' the Doctor told her. 'How does Carly take it?'

'When Carly…ascended, her brain temporarily morphed to be able to take that sort of input,' Dani explained. 'When she passes the mantel of Sovereign onto the next one, she'll also pass on all that knowledge. She'll only know what she has to.'

'Her brain will filter it.' The Doctor nodded. 'But she'd still be human with human feelings and human impulses. If any action is done out of line, the dimension dies. How would Sovereigns temper that?'

'Carly said most of them close off their emotions for their time as Sovereign,' Dani answered. 'But she doesn't. She relieves the tension by pulling practical jokes and making other people feel like idiots. Even if she's the only one that can feel the tension. Mind you, she only does it to people she either doesn't like, or who she thinks deserves it.'

'What can she do?' the Doctor asked.

'Uh…' Dani looked thoughtful. 'She's got advanced mental abilities, she can travel absolutely anywhere, she sees all and knows all, she's got the Power Platform, which is this disk made purely of energy that she can stand on and fly around like a big…24th Century glider, would be the best way to describe it…oh! And she's got the Impenetrable Barrier. It's literally impenetrable. The harder you hit it, the bigger of a splat you make. And going slow won't help either. It's like walking into a wall.'

The Doctor was staring at her incredulously. He believed her, but the whole thing was amazing to him. Dani nodded.

'That's was my reaction to it,' she told him.

'Anything she can't do?' he asked, a little hopelessly.

'Lie.'

'Lie?' the Doctor exclaimed in disbelief. 'That's it?'

'I know!' Dani laughed.

'But, in every universe, on every planet, everyday, everyone tells lies,' the Doctor said. 'What does she do instead?'

'She makes comments,' Dani answered. 'Sometimes they're cryptic and sometimes they're weird. Basically, when she doesn't want to tell the truth, she jumps around it.'

'Give me an example of cryptic,' the Doctor told her.

'Okay,' Dani said. 'This resurrection happened and it caused an imbalance in that particular dimension. Hell sort of started leaking in so Carly turned to the people that did the resurrection and said to them, "we're all gonna burn in hell" because she couldn't just say it outright. That and it was too early for people to really notice.'

'How's the resurrected now?' the Doctor asked seriously. Resurrection was a big no-no.

'Adjusted to life back on Earth,' Dani answered. 'Had a lot of help in that from the guy that is currently her husband, much to the disgust the resurrectors.'

'All right.' The Doctor leaned on the console. 'And an example of weird commentary?'

'Okay.' Dani grinned. 'They were at this machine designed to rip the universe apart and they'd found the right button to turn it off, but it wasn't working and they pressed it over and over again. And she suddenly looks at her thumb, raises it and goes "Oooo! Thumb!". And an old friend of hers was the only one who got it.'

'The only way to turn the machine off was to use your thumb.' The Doctor nodded.

'Yeah.' Dani nodded too. 'This old friend of hers was the only one who got it, so he did it himself.'

'They call her Crazy Carly, don't they?' the Doctor asked.

'Is it that obvious?' Dani laughed. 'Oh, and she also can't die.'

The Doctor considered this as he turned to the controls. 'So, where do we have to be?'

'Um…New York, November 1st, 1930.'

'Ah!' the Doctor exclaimed. 'The Great Depression!'


	4. Manhattan & Evolution

**What would happen if it turned out Rose's presence in the parallel world caused a misbalance?**

**(No Martha or Jones family in this one)**

Chapter 4: Daleks of Manhattan/Evolution of the Daleks

Rose looked up and watched in elated amazement as the TARDIS materialised and the Doctor stepped out with a girl a couple of years older than her. The Doctor looked the same as ever. Just the way she remembered him, except she didn't remember him looking that good. The girl, that Rose assumed was Dani, had long black hair, black eyes and a muscular build. She was wearing a long-sleeved yellow shirt, jeans and runners. Rose noticed the TARDIS key hanging around Dani's neck. He'd probably given it to her years ago.

'Ah!' the Doctor exclaimed, turning around, as Rose walked over him. 'Dani, have you met my friend?'

Dani turned around and looked up at the Statue of Liberty. 'Hm. Yeah, I've met her. I've stood on her.'

They both turned to the city.

'New York,' the Doctor said. 'The city so good they named it twice.'

Rose smiled as he used her line and she heard his voice again, though his lips didn't move. _And that line is brilliant. _Dani wandered over to the curtesy seat, picking up a newspaper. She came back over to the Doctor.

'And I think I found why Carly wanted us here,' she told him, handing him the newspaper.

Rose looked at the head line:** Hooverville Mystery Deepens**

'D'you reckon it's worth a snoop?' Dani asked.

'I reckon it needs a snoop,' the Doctor answered.

'Okay!' Dani threw the paper over her shoulder.

XXX

The Doctor looked down at Dani. 'Right. History lesson. The Depression. What do you know?'

'Herbert Hoover,' Dani stated. '31st President of the United States. Years were 1929 to 1933. Until then, New York was a boom town. The Roaring 20s.'

'And in 1929?' the Doctor prodded.

'The Wall Street Crash,' Dani answered. 'The whole economy was wiped out overnight and thousands of people were left unemployed. The huddled masses suddenly doubled in number.'

'"Give me your poor, your dispossessed, your refuse",' the Doctor quoted. 'Now, do you know what Hooverville is?'

'One of the settlements of the huddled masses that are spread all over the US,' Dani answered. 'Specifically, the New York one.'

'You learn well,' he told her.

'You teach well,' she responded.

'Yes, I do,' he agreed. 'And this…is Hooverville.'

XXX

'These are strange times,' Solomon told them. 'Man can go from being king of the hill to lowest of the low overnight. Guess with some folks, it works the other way around.'

The Doctor frowned. That was right. But Solomon was wrong about one thing. Dani seemed to think so too.

'It's not just these times,' the girl stated. 'It's happened since the beginning of humanity. It's just more noticeable right now.'

Solomon looked at her, impressed. 'Who's been teaching you?'

Dani jerked her thumb in the Doctor's direction. 'Him.'

XXX

'What's the work?' Solomon asked Diagoras.

'A little trip down the sewers,' he answered. 'Got a tunnel collapse, needs clearing. Any takers?'

'A dollar a day,' Solomon stated. 'That's slave wage. Men don't always come back up, do they?'

'Accidents happen,' Diagoras responded.

'What do you mean?' the Doctor asked. 'What sort of accidents?'

'You don't need the work, that's fine!' Diagoras snapped. 'Anybody else?'

The Doctor and Dani looked at each other and raised their hands.

XXX

'Turn left,' Diagoras said. 'Go about half a mile, follow tunnel 273. The fall's right ahead of you. You can't miss it.'

'And when do we get our dollar?' Frank asked.

'When you come back up,' Diagoras answered.

'And if we don't come back?' the Doctor asked neutrally.

'Then I got no one to pay,' Diagoras answered.

Dani cocked an eyebrow. 'Well, duh!'

Rose smiled gently. She already liked Dani. She had obviously, as Carly'd said, been raised by the Doctor. As they went off. The Doctor paused, giving Diagoras a look that displayed, to Rose, his suspicion. Probably to Dani too. Then he moved off. Rose stayed near the Doctor, but kept an eye on Dani, who was talking to Frank.

'So, where you from, Frank?' she asked. 'Don't seem to be from around here.'

'You can talk!' Frank laughed. 'No, I'm Tennessee born and bred.'

'So, why'd you come here?' Dani asked.

'Uh, my daddy died,' he answered. 'Momma couldn't afford to feed us all. So, I'm the oldest, it's up to me to feed myself. So, I put on my coat, hitched up here on the railroads. There's a whole lotta runaways in the camp, younger than me, from all over. Missouri, Oklahoma, Texas. Solomon keeps a lookout for us.' He paused. 'So, what about you? You're a long way from home.'

'Yeah.' Dani shrugged. 'But my home was blown up when I was 5. The Doctor found me and I've been with him on and off ever since.'

Rose smiled. That didn't really surprise her. If the Doctor found an orphan, it sounded like the kind of thing he'd do.

'Hm,' Frank remarked. 'He must've been a kid himself back then.'

'You could say that,' Dani responded.

XXX

'Dani?' the Doctor asked, holding the gelatose flesh.

Dani crouched down beside him. Her being a born warrior meant she had the eyes of a hawk, the ears of a wolf and the nose of a bloodhound. She crouched down and suddenly sniffed it.

'It's just a guess,' she said. 'But, I'd say it was artificial.'

'Engineered?' the Doctor asked.

'I think so,' she agreed.

XXX

Dani's instincts told her something was really wrong as the three men neared the humanoid pig. Then it jumped up and more came. They all ran and Dani was aware Frank had been captured. They eventually came to a ladder.

'Everyone up!' she yelled.

XXX

'So, what about you and that doll?' Tallulah asked Dani.

Dani laughed. 'Oh, come on!' She scoffed. 'Two things: first, he's in love with this other girl and second, he's like my older brother or my father or something.'

'Really?' Tallulah asked. 'Wow. You'd never know. You worried about him or something? Cuz that's the only other reason I could see you looking at him like that.'

'It's stupid not to worry about him,' Dani told her. 'He chases this sort of stuff all the time.'

'Do you think he can find Lazlo?' Tallulah asked hopefully.

'If he's still alive, yes,' Dani said.

'Dani!' the Doctor suddenly called. 'We're going down!'

'Coming!' Dani called. Then she smiled at Tallulah. 'See you later. Hopefully, we'll be back with your boyfriend.'

XXX

The Doctor watched as Dani was grabbed. The girl a born fighter. She could resist if she wanted to but the Doctor, as he was running away, waved her off. Dani understood. The Doctor wanted to know what was going on and the best way to do that was to have the companion get herself captured. The Doctor ran back to the theatre.

XXX

Rose followed the Doctor back down into the sewers. So did Tallulah. Well, the girl only wanted to find her boyfriend. This was the way to do it.

'Hey, who are you anyway?' Tallulah asked. 'I never asked.'

'The Doctor,' he answered.

'A doctor?' she asked. 'Huh. My mother always said: marry a doctor and you're fit for life. I meet one and he's already taken.'

But the Doctor spotted something ahead and slapped a hand over Tallulah's mouth, dragging her into the shadows. Rose watched the Dalek pass in shock. They were meant to be gone. As soon as it was out of sight, the Doctor let Tallulah go and they stepped out of their hiding place.

'No, no, no, no, no,' the Doctor whispered. 'They survive. 'They always survive while I lose everything.'

'That metal thing?' Tallulah asked. 'What was it?'

'It's called a Dalek,' the Doctor answered. 'And it's not just metal, it's alive.'

'You're kidding me?' Tallulah asked with a laugh.

'Do I look like I'm kidding?' the Doctor snapped. 'Inside that shell is a creature born to hate, who's only thought is to destroy everything and everyone that isn't a Dalek too. They won't stop until it's killed every human being alive.'

'But…' Tallulah stammered. 'If that's not a human being, that kinda implies it's from outer space?' She saw the furious look on his face. 'Yet again, that's a "no" with the kidding. Oy! Well, what's it doing here? In New York?'

The Doctor didn't answer.

XXX

They did find Lazlo. Half-mutated into a pig. And he took them to where the Daleks were measuring intelligence. Dani was there. They scanned a man.

'Intelligence scan,' the Dalek stated. 'Initiate. Reading brainwaves. Low intelligence.'

'Are you calling me stupid?' the guy asked.

'You are if you're asking that question,' Dani remarked as he was carted off.

'Silence!' the Dalek snapped. 'This one will become a pig slave. Next.'

'They're divided into two groups: high intelligence and low intelligence,' Lazlo told them. 'The low intelligence are taken to be Pig Slaves, like me.'

'But that's not fair!' Tallulah claimed.

'Shh!' the Doctor snapped.

'You're the smartest guy I ever dated,' Tallulah told him.

'And the others?' the Doctor asked.

'They're taken off to the laboratory,' Lazlo answered.

'Why?' the Doctor asked. 'What for?'

'I don't know,' Lazlo answered. 'The masters only call it the final experiment.

Frank was scanned.

'Superior intelligence,' the Dalek stated.

Then it scanned Dani.

'Intelligence scan. Initiate. Superior intelligence. This one will become part of the final experiment.'

They were put in a group and led in one direction. Then the Daleks headed in their direction.

'Look out they're moving,' the Doctor pulled Lazlo and Tallulah back.

They started to head off, but the Doctor stayed.

'Doctor!' Lazlo hissed. 'Doctor! Quickly!'

'I'm not coming,' the Doctor told them. 'I've got an idea. You go.'

'Lazlo, come on,' Tallulah said.

'Can you remember the way?' he asked.

'Yeah, I think so.'

'Then go,' he told her. 'Please.'

'But Lazlo, you've gotta come with me,' she told him.

'Where would I go?' he asked. 'Tallulah, I'm begging you. Just save yourself, just run. Just go!'

He pushed her towards the exit. He then came to the Doctor's side. They pressed themselves against the wall and the Daleks passed, leading the terrified humans and Dani. The Doctor moved off and slipped into the line. Lazlo slipped in behind the other pigs.

'Hi, Dani,' he greeted, knowing he didn't need to tell her to keep walking.

'Hey, boss,' Dani greeted.

'Happy to see me?' he asked.

'Ecstatic.' Dani laughed.

'Well, you can kiss me later,' the Doctor told her. 'You too, Frank, if you want.'

Dani looked at Frank. 'Relax. The Doctor and I have been running into these guys for years and we always beat them.'

XXX

Dani watched the Daleks talking.

'Evolution?' the Doctor asked in confusion. 'Dani, ask what that is.'

She knew why. The Doctor couldn't draw attention to himself just yet. He was too recognisable and they may never find out if he was caught here too early.

'Oi!' she called, stepping forward. 'What's that thing?'

The Daleks turned to face her. 'You will bear witness.'

'Bear witness to what?' Dani asked.

'This is the dawn of a new age.'

'Meaning?' Dani asked, raising an eyebrow.

'We are the only four Daleks in existence,' the Dalek answered. 'So the species must evolve. A life outside the shell. The children of Skaro must walk again.'

She stepped back. She waited patiently. The black Dalek was shaking wildly now. Then it suddenly stopped and the light in the eyestalk faded as if it died. The body opened and, instead of the usual stub-limbed mass of flesh, Dani saw a humanoid shape. It climbed out of the shell and faced them. The Dalek shell closed behind it. Dani took a step back towards the Doctor, feeling fear of the Daleks for the first time in her life. At least, for the first time since she could remember.

'I am a human Dalek,' the evolved Dalek stated. 'I am your future.'

'Oh.' Dani shook her head. 'You have _got _to be kidding me.'

'These humans will become like me,' the human Dalek said.

Dani felt the Doctor move off to get something. Man with the made-in-two-seconds plan.

'Prepare them for hybridisation,' the human Dalek said.

Dani punched the first pig that came near her and sent it flying across the room. Suddenly _Happy Days Are Here Again_ started playing. Dani smirked and looked in the direction it was coming from.

'What is that sound?' the human Dalek demanded.

'Ah, well now.' The Doctor came out from behind one of the Dalek structures. 'That would be me. Hello. Surprise! Boo! Etcetera.'

'Doctor?' the human Dalek asked.

'The enemy of the Daleks!' one of the pure Daleks behind him stated.

'Exterminate!' another said.

'Wait!' the human Dalek called.

It seemed, he was being affected by the human DNA. Dani moved behind the Doctor. Waiting to see what was going to happen.

'Well, then.' The Doctor approached him. 'A new form of Dalek. Fascinating and very clever.'

'The Cult of Skaro escaped your slaughter,' the human Dalek stated.

Dani cocked her head. She'd heard of them. The Doctor had told her. He hadn't thought them real. Turned out they were. And he'd met them.

'How did you end up in 1930?' the Doctor asked.

'Emergency temporal shift,' the human Dalek answered.

'Oh!' The Doctor laughed. 'That must have roasted up your power cells, eh?' He turned around and wandered back to Dani. 'Time was, four Daleks could've conquered the world. Do you remember, Dani?'

'Not really,' Dani answered. 'You stopped them everytime you ran into them.'

'So I did,' he agreed. 'But instead, look. You're skulking away, hidden in the dark, experimenting. All of which results in you.' He spoke to the human Dalek. 'I am Dalek in human form.' 'But what does it feel like?'

So he'd noticed it too.

_Or._ Dani mused. _He's seen it before. A Dalek with human DNA._

'You can talk to me, Dalek Sec,' the Doctor told him. 'It is Dalek Sec, isn't it? That's your name? You've got a name and mind of your own. Tell me what you're thinking right now.'

'I…' he staggered. '…feel humanity.' He turned away.

'Good,' the Doctor said. 'That's good.'

'I…' Dalek Sec went on. '…feel everything we wanted from mankind, which is ambition, hatred, aggression and war. Such a genius for war…'

'No,' the Doctor said. 'That's not what humanity means.'

'I think it does!' Dalek Sec insisted. 'At heart, this species is so very Dalek.'

'Oh, come on!' Dani scoffed. 'You've got a rotten human being there. All he ever had was ambition and aggression and hatred and war. Behind me, most of these humans are decent. They have love and friendship and loyalty to someone or something. The human race is not Dalek. It is human.'

'And what have you achieved, then?' the Doctor asked, stepping out of the circle of Daleks. Dani followed. 'With this final experiment, eh? Nothing! Cause I can show you what you're missing with this thing. A simple little radio.' He patted it.

'What is the purpose of that device?' one of the Daleks demanded.

'Well, exactly,' the Doctor said. 'It plays music. What's the point of that? Oh, with music, you can dance to it, sing with it, fall in love to it. Unless you're a Dalek, of course. Then it's all just noise.'

He pointed the sonic at it and a shrill buzzing filled the air. It was clearly painful to the Daleks and the Pig Slaves.

'Run!' the Doctor yelled.

XXX

They returned to Hooverville. Dani turned to the Doctor.

'Doctor?' she asked.

'Yes?' he responded.

'Dalek Sec will begin to be affected by human emotions now, won't he?' she guessed.

Rose smiled and listened.

'Yes, he will.' The Doctor nodded, 'Was it in his life force?'

'Yes,' Dani said. 'I wouldn't think you'd think of that, though. You've always been so angry at them. Ever since the Time War.'

'And ever since I lost her,' the Doctor murmured.

Dani cocked her head. 'So what happened?'

'We landed in a museum in 2012,' the Doctor told her. Rose could see this was painful for him. 'Rose and me. And there was a Dalek there. It tricked her into thinking it was innocent. She'd never seen one before and I never told her. She touched it and the background radiation activated. Woke it up. But her DNA mixed in with the Dalek DNA and it began to feel emotions. It couldn't take it so it destroyed itself.' The Doctor looked at Dani. 'Between you and her, there's only one difference.'

'What's that?' Dani asked.

'She was a lot more merciful than you are,' the Doctor answered.

'That's not difficult for a human,' Dani told him.

They were silent for a moment, which the Doctor's mind had wandered onto business.

'I need to find out what they're up to,' he said. 'And they're bound to attack Hooverville sooner or later.'

'What do you suggest?' Dani knew the Doctor well.

XXX

Dani stood with the Hoovervillers and watched the Daleks take the Doctor away.

'Right,' she said as soon as they were out of sight. 'I'm off.'

'Where?' Frank asked.

'Empire State Building,' Dani answered. 'The Doctor let them take him because he wants to find out what's going on. He'll meet me, and anyone who wants to join me, there.'

'Does this guy plan in advance all the time?' Frank asked.

'Not very often, no.'

XXX

Dani, Frank and Tallulah turned as the lift opened.

'First floor, perfumery,' the Doctor stated.

'I never thought I'd see you again!' Tallulah called to Lazlo.

He ran out. 'No stopping me.' They embraced.

The Doctor strode out.

'Doctor, what's going on?' Dani asked.

'Dalekanium on the spire,' the Doctor answered. 'Inject Dalek DNA into those high-intelligence humans.'

'You mean this?' Dani pointed.

The Doctor ran over to look. 'That's it.'

Suddenly the elevator dinged.

'No, no, no, no!' The Doctor ran over.

'What?' Dani followed him as he tried to sonic the lift.

'Gone back down to the Daleks,' the Doctor answered. 'And they're not gonna leave us up here alone. What's the time?'

'11: 15,' Frank answered.

'Six minutes to go,' the Doctor said. 'I've gotta remove the Dalekanium before the gamma radiation hits.'

'Well, no lift,' Dani said, dragging him over to the unfinished balcony. 'Better start climbing.'

'Oh, that's high,' the Doctor said. 'That's very…blimey, that's high.'

'The sky's the limit,' Dani responded.

'Good girl,' he told her. 'Dani, stay here for a bit. Only come up if I lose consciousness.'

'Why?' Dani asked as he started climbing.

'Because you're fast, strong and death ray-resistant,' he answered.

Dani shrugged. 'Point taken.'

XXX

Rose followed the Doctor up the Empire State Building. She knew he'd throw a fit if he knew she was right behind him. But she had to make sure he'd be safe. He climbed up higher and she followed him. Very soon they were on the platform and the Doctor immediately started trying to sonic the Dalekanium off the spire. It was working but they were running short of time.

XXX

'What the hell are you two clowns doing?' Tallulah asked.

'Even if the Doctor gets the Dalekanium down, this place is still gonna get hit,' Dani explained as she and Frank worked. 'Lightning all down the building. Electricity runs across metal and if metal is attached to the lift, we get pork, bacon, crackling. All well done.'

'Oh, my God!' Tallulah exclaimed. 'That could work!'

XXX

The Doctor pulled the first one off and moved onto the next. Rose bit her lip, praying that he'd get out of this one alive. She wished she could help him. He was sonicing the next one, but he was tired. He dropped the sonic and almost dived after it.

'No,' Rose whispered.

He tried to yank it off with his bare hands but he wasn't strong enough. Then, that stupid man, he up and clamped onto the spire. The lightning struck and he screamed out in pain as the electricity shot through him.

'Doctor!' Rose screamed.

XXX

Dani watched the electricity shoot over the metal and electrocute the pigs. She grinned at it with hope. But, as soon as it was over and the Pig Slaves were dead, Dani felt the distinctive feeling of the Doctor losing consciousness.

'Oh, brother.' She groaned.

XXX

The Doctor dropped down onto the platform and Rose dropped to her knees by the Doctor's side. She pressed her ear to his chest and was relieved to hear the double heartbeat. She sat back and waited. It wasn't long before Dani and Frank came up but, by then, Rose had figured it out. Dani dropped down to the Doctor's side and gave him a shake. She checked his pulses and then shook him again, a little harder this time.

'Wake up, Doctor!' she called. Then she pulled the sonic out of her pocket and held it up. She spoke calmly. 'Look, I know you can hear me. We found your sonic screwdriver down there. Here. Someone's getting careless.'

He pressed his eyes together and turned his head. 'Oh, my head.' He groaned.

'Hi,' Dani said.

'Hi,' he responded. 'You survived, then.'

'So did you.' Dani shrugged. 'Barely.'

He gave her a slight grin.

'But I noticed,' she said. 'The Dalekanium's still attached.'

He sat up and took a look. Rose sighed in relief. He was all right.

XXX

'The Daleks would have gone straight to a war footing.' The Doctor stated, 'They'll be using the sewers. Spreading the soldiers out beneath Manhattan.'

They were back on floor 100.

'How do we stop them?' Lazlo asked.

'There's only one chance.' The Doctor answered, 'I got in the way. That gamma strike went zapping through me first.'

Dani suddenly got it.

'So we need to draw fire?' Dani asked.

'Before they can attack New York, I need to face them.' The Doctor hit his forehead. 'Think, think, think, think, think. I need some sort of space, somewhere safe, somewhere out of the way. Tallulah!' He twisted around.

'That's me,' she said. 'Three Ls and an H.'

'The theatre!' the Doctor exclaimed. 'It's right above them! And what, it's gone midnight. Can you get us inside?'

'Don't see why not.'

XXX

'This should do it!' The Doctor led them all in. 'Here we go!' He started scanning around.

'There ain't nothing more creepy than a theatre in the dark,' Tallulah stated. 'Listen, Doctor, I know you gotta thing for show tunes, but there's a time and a place, huh?'

Lazlo collapsed in one of the seats.

'Lazlo?' Tallulah asked. 'What's wrong?'

'Nothing,' he told her. 'It's just so hot.'

'But it's freezing in here,' Tallulah said.

Dani jumped up onto the back of the seats so she could whisper to the Doctor without the humans hearing.

'I don't think the partial conversion agrees with him,' she whispered.

'Neither do I,' he whispered back.

'Doctor, what's happening to him?' she asked.

'Not now, Tallulah,' he told her. 'Sorry.'

'So what are you doing?' Dani asked, jumping down. 'Letting them know where we are?'

'If the Daleks are going to war, they want to find their number one enemy,' the Doctor said. 'I'm just telling them where I am.'

The Doctor knew Dani wasn't going anywhere. She was too loyal to him. And she was convinced she'd need to be here, to make sure he survived. Most companions, at her age, generally thought him indestructible, but she had no pretences she was given. He'd never lied to her about the big, bad things of the universe.

There was no point. Her senses were sharp enough to see right through it and, as time went on, she got to know him enough to know when he was telling her a whopper. So he'd always told her the truth.

'Everyone take cover,' he ordered.

They all jumped down as the humans with Dalek DNA came in. Frank moved but the Doctor caught him.

'Don't panic,' he told him. 'Don't antagonise them.'

'But where are the Dalek masters?' Lazlo asked.

An explosion sounded on the stage as two of the Daleks and Dalek Sec appeared. Dalek Sec was in chains.

'The Doctor will stand before the Daleks,' one of the Daleks ordered.

The Doctor climbed onto the back of the audience seats and took a few steps forward and stood on the cushions of the seats, before the Daleks.

'You will die, Doctor,' the Dalek said. 'It is the beginning of a new age. Planet Earth will become new Skaro.'

'Oh, and what a world,' the Doctor remarked bitterly. 'With anything just the slightest bit different ground into the dirt. That's Dalek Sec.' He pointed. 'Don't you remember? The cleverest Dalek ever and look what you've done to him. Is that your new empire? Hmm? Is that the foundation for a whole new civilisation?'

'My Daleks,' Dalek Sec spoke up. 'Just understand this. If you chose death and destruction, then death and destruction will chose you.'

'Incorrect,' one of the Daleks said. 'We always survive. Now we will destroy our greatest enemy, the Doctor.'

'But he can help you,' Dalek Sec objected.

'The Doctor must die,' the other Dalek stated.

'No,' Dalek Sec objected. 'I beg you. Don't…'

'Exterminate!' the Dalek yelled and Dalek Sec stood up and was killed.

Tallulah turned into Lazlo and the Doctor, Dani and Frank froze.

'Guess he did go a bit human,' Dani muttered.

'Your own leader,' the Doctor said. 'The only creature who might have led you out of the darkness—' _Like my Rose did me._ he thought. '—and you destroyed him.' He turned to the infected humans. 'Did you see what they did? Huh? Do you see what a Dalek really is.' He paused. 'If I'm gonna die. Let's give the new boys a shot, what do you think, eh? The Dalek humans. Their first blood. Go on. Baptise them!'

'Dalek humans, take aim,' one of the Daleks ordered.

'What are you waiting for?' the Doctor asked. 'Give the command!'

'Exterminate!' the Dalek ordered.

The Doctor braced himself incase the plan hadn't worked. But it had. They didn't shoot.

'Exterminate!'

They didn't move.

'Obey!' the Dalek ordered. 'Dalek humans will obey! You will obey! Exterminate!'

'Why?' one of the men asked.

'Daleks do not question orders!' the Dalek snapped.

'But why?' the man asked.

'You will stop this!' the Dalek ordered.

'But why?' the man repeated.

'You must not question!' the Dalek snapped.

'But you are not our master,' the man said. 'And we…we are not Daleks.'

'No, you're not,' the Doctor said. 'And you never will be.' Then he addressed the Daleks. 'Sorry. I got in the way of the lightning strike. Time Lord DNA got all mixed up. Just that little bit of freedom.'

'If they will not obey,' the Dalek said. 'Then they must die.' The man who'd done he questioning was shot.

'Get down!' the Doctor yelled as he ducked down.

Dani, Frank, Tallulah and Lazlo ducked as the gun fight started. Soon, both Daleks were destroyed, but not without the humans.

XXX

The Doctor apprehended Dalek Ca'an and it teleported out. Then the Doctor had to save Lazlo. After saying goodbye, the Doctor and Dani went back to the TARDIS.

'So there's still one Dalek floating about then?' Dani asked.

'Yeah,' the Doctor agreed.

Dani shook her head. Rose watched this.

'You had to give someone a happy ending, didn't you?' Dani asked.

'What do you mean?' the Doctor asked.

'You lost her,' Dani said. 'You can't get back to her. You know what it's like to lose someone you love and know it's forever. You didn't want anyone else to feel that pain so you gave Lazlo and Tallulah as close to a happy ending as they can get.'

The Doctor stared at her for a moment. 'I raised you too clever.'

They stepped into the TARDIS. Rose, knowing what was coming next, closed her eyes and suddenly found herself on her bed. She felt the tears coming. And the beginnings of a headache.

* * *

><p>'So, Dani, where to now?' the Doctor asked.<p>

'Surprise me,' Dani told him. Suddenly her mobile phone rang. 'Hold that thought.' She answered it. 'Hey, Jarvis. What—…oh, you sure? Okay, fine. We'll take a look. I'll see you…before it starts. Oh, shut up.' She hung up. 'Sorry. You'll have to wait to surprise me. Something just came up on Earth.'

'When?' the Doctor asked.

'About a day after we left.' Dani answered, 'Apparently, this old guy's doing this gerontology experiment. Jarvis is from Handicone. I'll assume you know it seeing as they were your allies?'

'Yeah,' the Doctor said sadly. 'They were destroyed in the Time War. I guess Jarvis is the last of them.'

'Well, anyway.' Dani shrugged. 'He reckons this guy could get away with it. Reckons he's had some extraterrestrial help with the workings.'


	5. The Lazarus Experiment

**What would happen if it turned out Rose's presence in the parallel world caused a misbalance?**

**(No Martha or Jones family in this one)**

Chapter 5: The Lazarus Experiment

Jarvis, the last survivor of Handicone, looked up as a TARDIS, which clearly had a busted chameleon circuit, materialised in Dani's flat living room. It was in the shape of a police box from Earth's England's 1950s and 1960s. Dani walked out of the box first and came over.

'Hey, Jarvis.' She hugged the Handiconean.

'Hey,' he responded.

She stepped back as the Time Lord came out.

'That's a good look,' Jarvis told him.

'I like it.' The Time Lord grinned. 'I'm the Doctor.'

'I'm Jarvis.'

The two of them shook hands.

'Jarvis is a pretty short name for a Handiconean,' the Doctor remarked.

'It's just easier for most on this planet,' Jarvis told him. 'I'm sure you'd understand. My full name's Jarvissaiondiajan.'

'Yeah.' The Doctor laughed. 'I get it. After "Jarvis", they get a little tongue-tied.'

'So what's this about a gerontology experiment?' Dani asked.

'Right, here.' Jarvis crossed over to the table and picked up a file, which he handed to the Doctor and explained as the Doctor flicked through it. 'Professor Richard Lazarus. Born 1938. His life is devoted to manipulating the ageing process of the human body to preserve it. Generally not something we'd worry about, what, with human science not being up to par with that one. But then he got sponsored by Harold Saxon. Man with impressive awards and such, but all of which are faked. Next thing you know the experimentation is moving along swimmingly. What do you think would cause that?'

'I think,' the Doctor put the file down, 'we ought to take a look. When's the demonstration?'

'Tonight,' Jarvis answered.

'Can you get us in?'

Jarvis smiled and held up two entrance tickets. The Doctor and Dani grinned and took the tickets from him.

XXX

'Have the Kaias Foundation on standby,' Dani told Jarvis as he left. 'If things get extra-nasty, back up would be good.'

Jarvis nodded and left.

'What's the Kaias Foundation?' the Doctor asked.

'There are about 300,000 inhabitants of this planet that aren't human,' Dani answered without any hesitation. 'Most of them are just using this place as a second home, like I am. And a good deal of them would like this planet to remain in one piece. And a major fraction of _those_ aliens can't hold a steady job in a human environment because of their alien natures. So I went to talk to the Queen about it. We came up with an agreement. If I gathered these aliens and had them defend the humans from hostile alien life forms and defend peaceful aliens from hostile humans, she'd make sure they had a living. That's what the Kaias Foundation is.'

The Doctor grinned at her. He was proud of her. She'd taken what he'd taught her and put it to good use. She always had given him a good feeling. He remembered when he'd first seen her. She'd given him the intuition that she would make him proud. And she had. He pulled his focus back to the present.

'Where's your base?' he asked.

'Well, we took over Torchwood's old base after you kicked them to the curb,' Dani answered with a self-satisfied smirk. 'There's a weak spot there now. I figured it may as well be guarded by people who know what they're doing and I wasn't the only one so I commandeered the building.'

The Doctor grinned even wider.

* * *

><p>Rose decided she could ignore the headache for the time being. Right then and there, it was small, so she could take it, until it got bigger. That night, they had a bit of a party to go to. She didn't trust this guy not to go nuts if it actually worked.<p>

_Lazarus._

* * *

><p>The Doctor and Dani walked towards the presentation theatre with entrance tickets tucked into their bigger-on-the-inside pockets. They were dressed up for the night, which was rare for the Doctor. He was wearing a black suit and Dani was wearing a black dress.<p>

'Oh, black tie,' the Doctor complained as they walked. 'Whenever I wear this, something bad always happens.'

'Whenever you wear anything, something bad always happens,' Dani responded with a snorted laugh. 'Oh! Remember, Joseph's coat?'

'Eh?' the Doctor asked, giving her a strange look as if he didn't quite understand what she was talking about.

'_Joseph and the Technicolour Coat_,' Dani said, quoting the name of a musical play in a sing-song voice.

'Oh, that.' The Doctor shuddered. 'I was a walking clown back then. Peri was right. It was absolutely tasteless.'

'Not many people on Earth noticed,' Dani told him. 'Mainly because when you wore that coat on Earth, you usually had me with you and I was a little kid.'

'That's true.'

* * *

><p>Rose stood among the Torchwood people.<p>

'Tonight, I am going to perform a miracle!' Lazarus announced.

The noise of the crowd and the low humming of the machine hurt her head, but she refused weakness. She couldn't show it. It wasn't a good time to be held back by anything. She watched as Lazarus stepped into the capsule. Then the machine was activated and the whirring started, but that was quickly finished by the capsule exploding and taking Lazarus with it. Chaos quickly erupted. Everyone except for the Torchwood agents in the room. Rose barely managed not to crumble to the ground and let the pain take over. _No weakness,_ she told herself sternly, _don't show any weakness. Don't have any weakness._

'Wow,' one of the Torchwood agents said. 'That was a real waste of our time.'

'Better safe than sorry,' Rose responded. 'Fall out!'

They quietly slid out.

* * *

><p>'Okay, tell me that was a very clever trick.' Dani's tone was somewhere between begging and whining.<p>

'Oh, it's not a trick,' the Doctor told her. 'I wish it were.'

Dani turned. 'Definite alien assistance, then?'

'And from a very advanced species.' The Doctor nodded. 'Whoever helped him pull this off knew what they were doing…sort of.'

_That's confusing. _'Eh?' Dani asked.

'He just changed what it means to be human,' the Doctor told Dani.

Now Dani got it. If they were really clever, they'd know what that could do to the universe and not just the human race. It could destroy everything that existed if someone changed what it meant to be their own species.

'Oh.' Dani shook her head. 'Well, I can't see why someone would do that. I mean, I've met humans that have been thrown in situations which permanently stopped their ageing and one is even still ageing, he just can't die. Either way, they all hate it. They all want to be mortal again. Why, in the name of all that bleeds, would somebody purposely do that to themselves?' She pointed at Lazarus.

'Fear,' the Doctor answered. 'Something happened to him sometime in his life. It made him terrified of death. So much so that he sought out someway to live forever. He thinks he's found it.'

'What do you think?' Dani asked.

'I think the consequences are not going to be pretty,' the Doctor answered. Then he looked down at his old ward. 'Get me a sample of his DNA, Dani. Then meet me in one of his laboratories. We ought to find out what he did to himself.'

Dani nodded and disappeared. The Doctor had some investigating to do. Starting with a talk to the Lazaruses.

XXX

Dani skipped past the table, swooped down and picked up the glass that Lazarus had been drinking from. Then she jumped back up and looked at the rim. She smiled to herself and clicked her tongue. 'Let's see what you have to say.' She shot off in the direction of the Doctor's life-force.

XXX

Dani and the Doctor stared at the laptop screen.

'Amazing,' the Doctor said.

'Okay, Dr. Superbrain.' Dani looked at him. 'What's amazing?'

'Lazarus's DNA,' the Doctor answered.

'Really?' Dani squinted.

Suddenly the molecules shifted.

'They just changed,' Dani said. 'That's impossible. I'm sure that's impossible. Isn't it?' She looked at him.

'And that's two impossible things we've seen so far tonight,' the Doctor told her with a grin. 'Don't you love it when that happens?'

Dani grinned right back. 'Yeah.' Then she sobered up. 'It means Lazarus has changed his own molecular patterns?'

'Hypersonic soundwaves to destabilise the cell structure,' the Doctor said. 'And a metagenic program to manipulate the coding in the protein strands.'

'So he hacked into his own genes and ordered them to rejuvenate?' Dani asked. 'And they're still mutating now?'

'Because he missed something,' the Doctor said. 'Something in his DNA that's been activated and won't let him stabilise. Something that's trying to change him.'

'Change him?' Dani asked. 'Change him into what, though? Some sort of creature?'

'I don't know,' the Doctor answered. 'But probably. We need to find out. Keep on him, Dani. Where is he?'

Dani concentrated for a minute. 'Upstairs.'

'Let's go.'

XXX

They walked into the room and the Doctor turned on the light. Dani sniffed. 'Corpse.' She shot over the desk.

The Doctor followed her and they found Lady Thaw there, drained to a shrivelled heap on the floor.

'It's just a shell, now,' the Doctor said.

'Had all the life-energy drained out of her,' Dani concluded, able to feel life-force as easily as she could feel a proper punch to the face.

'Like squeezing the juice out of an orange,' the Doctor said gravely.

'Lazarus,' Dani murmured.

'Could be.' The Doctor allowed.

'Has he changed already?' Dani asked.

'Not necessarily,' the Doctor responded. 'You saw the DNA. It was fluctuating. This process must demand energy. This might not have been enough.'

Dani concentrated. 'He's coming upstairs again. There's a young girl with him. Early 20s, I'd say, actually. Young people have more energy, so, that means…'

'He's found a new victim,' the Doctor concluded. 'Stop him, Dani.'

Dani shot off with the Doctor on her heels.

XXX

'I'd get away from him,' Dani said, coming out onto the roof with the Doctor.

'Don't tell me what to do,' the girl told her.

'I wouldn't have thought you had time for poetry, Lazarus,' the Doctor said, patronising the old scientist. 'What, with you being so busy defying the laws of nature and everything.'

'You're right, Doctor,' Lazarus said. 'One lifetime's been too short for me to do everything I'd like. How much more I'll get done in two or three or four.'

'Doesn't work like that,' the Doctor told him. 'Some people live more in 20 years than others do in 80. It's not the time that matters, it's the person.'

'But if it's the right person, what a gift that would be,' Lazarus mused.

'I know people,' Dani said. 'People who truly are stuck here forever, Lazarus. Maybe you'd like to meet them. We can all have a cup of tea and they can tell you how stupid and foolish you are to do this—to want this. They wouldn't ever understand this passion of yours. Eternal youth…it's not a gift. It's a curse.'

'Look at what you've done to yourself.' The Doctor agreed with her.

'Who are you to judge me?' Lazarus asked.

'Get over here now.' Dani yanked the girl over.

They all watched as Lazarus morphed. A giant scorpion—Lazarus—rose up over them.

'What is that?' the girl asked.

'Run!' the Doctor ordered.

Dani shoved the girl out the door and down the stairs as the Doctor soniced the lock behind them.

'What's your name, by the way?' Dani asked.

'Laura,' the girl answered, panting for breath.

'I'm Dani. He's the Doctor.'

'Why are we doing introductions at a time like this?' Laura asked, seeming incredulous at her.

'We do this a lot,' Dani assured her. 'When you live like that, this doesn't seem like too bad a time to have the introductions, when you're getting away. Are you okay?'

'I was gonna snog him,' Laura muttered in mild horror.

The banging on the door continued. Suddenly the lights flickered and an alarm went on.

'Security one,' the PA system announced. 'Security one. Security one.'

'What's that?' Dani asked.

'An intrusion,' Laura answered. 'It triggers a security lockdown. Kills most of the power. Stops the lifts, seals the exits.'

'He must be breaking through that door,' the Doctor concluded.

'Hold up.' Dani pulled a mike-speaker from her dress skirt. It'd been strapped to her leg. 'Kaias alert. Lazarus Laboratories. Code 4.' She quickly replaced it.

'The stairs!' the Doctor yelled. 'Come on!'

'What's code 4?' Laura asked as they ran.

'Attacking life forms that drain a natural nutrient from the body until it dies,' Dani answered. 'And there is little or no escape. It means my people keep their distance and try to trap it, sedate it or, in extreme circumstances, kill it.'

'That's the last alternative?' Laura asked.

'Killing is always the last alternative,' the Doctor told her. 'We always try to save them first. Every creature deserves that chance. Even him.'

XXX

The Doctor handed Dani the sonic and she started working on the doors, trying to get them open. But Lazarus was attacking a woman and her son.

'Lazarus!' the Doctor called. 'Leave them alone!'

Lazarus turned away. And the two humans started staggering away.

'What's the point?' the Doctor asked. 'You can't control it. The mutation's too strong. Killing those people won't help you. You're a fool. A vain old man who thought he could defy nature. Only nature got her own back, didn't she? You're a joke, Lazarus! A footnote in the history of failure!'

He took off and Lazarus gave the chase. Dani got the doors and the humans poured out. Then Dani ran out and whistled shrilly. An instant later, the Kaias Foundation vehicles pulled up with the emblem—a K in a circle—painted on the sides and Dani's Welfare Team started evacuating all of the humans as the Strategic Team piled into the tech van, the Psychic Team took various positions around the area and the Warfare Team came up the stairs. It looked slightly like a mildly disorganised military base.

'Dani!' Sark, the Untican head of the Warfare Team, called. 'What are we dealing with?'

'Old man who tried to defy nature,' Dani told them. 'He kinda programmed his cells to get younger and now he's a giant scorpion that's sucking life-force from whoever it can. I'm going back in. You wait for the Doctor. If we need you, we'll run out. If we don't, we'll walk.'

XXX

The Doctor hid in amongst the machinery.

'It's no good, Doctor,' Lazarus wheezed. 'You can't stop me.'

'Is that the same arrogance you had when you swore that nothing had gone wrong with your device?' the Doctor asked.

'The arrogance is yours,' Lazarus responded. 'You can't stand in the way of progress.'

'You call feeding on innocent people progress?' the Doctor asked. 'You're delusional!'

'It is a necessary sacrifice,' Lazarus insisted.

'That's not your decision to make!' the Doctor snapped.

XXX

Dani ran through the Laboratories, following the Doctor's life-force. There was an explosion ahead of her and she kept on running at a pace that wasn't going to bowl the Doctor over. They met at a corner and swung around.

'What are you doing here?' the Doctor asked.

He knew she could feel his life-force as easily as Lazarus could suck the same energy from a human body.

'Returning this.' Dani gave him the sonic back and he tucked it away. 'Kaias are outside. If we need them we run out the front door. If we don't, we walk. I heard an explosion. You kill Lazarus?'

As she asked, Lazarus came out and jumped at them.

'More sort of annoyed him, I'd say.' The Doctor pulled Dani away.

XXX

The Doctor and Dani were trapped in the ageing chamber. Lazarus wouldn't hunt them while they were in his precious machine. The Doctor crouched down, past Dani, to rewire the machine or something. Dani didn't give a damn about the limited space except that it was cramped. Dani came from a primitive race that were unashamed of their birthday suits. They were primitive in all ways, except that they didn't believe in showing emotions. In fact, they were actually pretty big on genocide. They was probably why they'd been killed when Dani was five. Dani was the way she was only because she had been raised by the Doctor. It'd taken a lot for him to turn her away from her violent upbringing. She'd been raised to be a good guy who was ashamed of nothing. Neither her body nor her emotions. She didn't remember her people too well, as a consequence, but she did know about them. Thanks to the Doctor, she understood a lot of things, but this wasn't one of them. This made absolutely no sense to her. She knew there was only one way for her to comprehend it.

'I don't get it,' Dani said as the Doctor soniced the floor. 'How did he take that shape? Did he throw some alien DNA in there or something?'

'No,' the Doctor answered, glancing up but continuing his sonicing. 'For once, it's strictly human in origin.'

'How is that human?' Dani asked, squinting. 'It doesn't look anything like a bloody human. It isn't even remotely humanoid.'

'Probably from dormant genes in Lazarus's DNA,' the Doctor answered. 'The energy field in this thing must have reactivated them. Looks like they're becoming dominant.'

'So, it's what?' Dani asked. 'A throwback?'

'Some option that evolution rejected for humans millions of years ago,' the Doctor agreed. 'But the potential is still there, locked away in their genes. Forgotten about until Lazarus unlocked it by mistake.'

'So…' Dani shrugged. 'Pandora's box? The Pandorica? The Seal of Be`sal? The Room of Lin?'

'Exactly,' the Doctor agreed brightly. 'And here I thought that you liked to neglect your homework.'

'I had to do something when you wouldn't let me out,' Dani responded.

Suddenly the blue lights went on.

'Did he just switch the machine on?' Dani asked.

'Sounds like it,' the Doctor said.

'That's bad, right?' Dani glanced down at him.

'I was hoping it was going to take him a little bit longer to figure that out,' the Doctor answered.

'What are you doing?' Dani asked.

'I'm trying to set the capsule to reflect energy rather than receive it.' the Doctor answered.

'What'll that do?' Dani asked.

'When he transforms, he's three times the size,' the Doctor answered. 'Cellular triplication so he's spreading himself thin. It should kill him.'

'Is it gonna affect us the same way?' Dani demanded.

'Just one more!' the Doctor insisted.

Then the glow stopped. They stepped outside.

'Really shouldn't take that long just to reverse the polarity,' the Doctor said. 'I must be a bit out of practice.'

They walked over and saw Lazarus laying there, in human form.

XXX

'You never answered my question,' Dani said as they walked out and she waved the agents away. 'If you hadn't done it in time, would we have ended up like him?'

The Kaias Foundation, save four, cleared out of there really quickly. They didn't want the human race knowing that aliens were so involved in their civilisation.

'Nah,' the Doctor answered. 'We're humanoid but our species are completely different from humans. I would have regenerated and your cells would have immediately fought back and stabilised to retain your shape before you even changed for the first time.'

Dani nodded, reassured. The Doctor saw Jarvis and three other aliens remained.

'These are my Faction Leaders,' Dani told the Doctor. 'Jarvis is head of the Strategic Team. Lassa is from Krysti. Obviously she's the head of my Welfare Team.'

It was obvious because Krystians were known throughout the universe for their caring and charitable natures. Lassa looked a few years older than Dani with long red hair and green eyes. The Untican had the burly figure and the milky eyes that were identified with his race. He had dark hair and the pale eyes were green. Despite the fighting prowess of the Unticans, they'd been gentle people and only fought when they had to.

'The Untican is Sark,' Dani told the Doctor. 'He's in charge of the Warfare Team. Maz is in charge of the Psychic Team.'

Maz was a Paearan with short blonde hair and blue eyes. She looked a bit younger than Dani and was identifiable by the red stone in the centre of her forehead. Paearans were the ultimate psychics. Any mental ability anyone could care to imagine, Paearans could do. All of them were the last of their species. The Doctor smiled at the thought of the interracial union. Of course, it wasn't long before the human authorities came to "take over the situation".

Dani and her friends all sniggered at them as they tried to figure out what happened. Then again until Lazarus was revealed to be still alive and having drained the paramedics.

'Dani!' the Doctor called to her. 'Life force! Track him down! Quick! Before he kills anyone else!'

Dani led the Doctor and her Faction Leaders to the church. He was sitting on the floor, wrapped only in a red blanket, futilely trying to fight off the mutation. The Doctor, Dani and Sark moved up on the left and Jarvis, Lassa and Maz moved up on the right. They stood around him, looking as intimidating as six humanoids could possibly look. Lazarus looked at the Doctor. The Doctor started pacing around him.

'I came here before,' Lazarus said, his voice weakened. 'A lifetime ago. I thought I was going to die then. In fact, I was sure of it.'

The Doctor stopped in front of him.

'I sat here, just a child,' Lazarus said. 'The sound of planes and bombs outside.'

'The Blitz,' the Doctor said.

'You've read about it,' Lazarus stated.

'I was there.' The Doctor corrected him.

'You're too young,' Lazarus told said.

'So are you,' The Doctor said. He continued circling him.

Lazarus started laughing. Then that turned into a cry of pain and his bone and nerves crackled. 'In the morning the fires had died, but I was still alive,' Lazarus said. 'I swore I'd never face death like that again.'

Dani tilted her head to the side thoughtfully. It seemed that it was just like the Doctor had thought. He was too scared of death. He'd wanted to fight something that was truly inevitable. The Doctor was looking up as Lazarus went on and Dani followed his line of sight.

'So defenceless,' Lazarus mused. 'I would arm myself. Fight back. Defeat it.'

The Doctor looked back at him. 'That's what you were trying to do today?'

'That's what I did today,' Lazarus insisted.

'What about the other people who died?' the Doctor demanded.

'They were nothing,' Lazarus responded arrogantly.

'Nothing?' Lassa demanded, outraged. 'Nothing? They had lives of their own! And you say "they were nothing"? How can you say that?'

Jarvis put a calming hand on her shoulder.

'I changed the course of history,' Lazarus raised his head semi-proudly as he said this.

'Any of them might've done, too,' the Doctor told him. 'You think history's only made with equations? Facing death is part of being human. You can't change that.' He stopped.

'No, Doctor,' Lazarus snapped. 'Avoiding death, that's being human. It's our strongest impulse: to cling to life with every fibre of being. I'm only doing what everyone before me has tried to do. I've simply been more…successful.' He cried out in pain and arched his back as more bones and nerves crackled.

'Look at yourself,' the Doctor told him. 'You're mutating. You've no control over it. You call that a success?'

'I call it progress,' Lazarus said, his voice thick with pain. He cried out again and there was more crackling from his body. 'I'm more now than I was. More than just an ordinary human.'

'There's no such thing as an ordinary human,' the Doctor told him.

A matter of fact. Lazarus cried out again. It was gaining control over him again. Dani looked around at her friends.

'He's gonna change any minute,' she told them. 'Everyone get near an escape.'

She backed Sark to the stairs that led to the bell tower and, catching on, Jarvis, Maz and Lassa moved around to join them. The Doctor stayed where he was. Lazarus looked up at him.

'You're so sentimental, Doctor,' he stated. 'Maybe you are older than you look.'

'I'm old enough to know that a longer life isn't always a better one,' the Doctor responded. 'In the end, you just get tired. Tired of the struggle. Tired of losing everyone that matters to you. Tired of watching everything turn to dust.' He crouched down in front of the foolish human. 'If you live long enough, Lazarus, the only certainty left is that you'll end up alone.'

'That's a price worth paying,' Lazarus responded.

'Is it?' the Doctor asked doubtfully.

Lazarus cried out in pain again and, again, his body arched and his bones and nerves crackled. 'I will feed soon.'

'I'm not gonna let that happen,' the Doctor told him.

'You've not been able to stop me so far,' Lazarus said.

'I'm not even human,' the Doctor told him. 'You need human energy for the mutation. If you tried feeding on me, it wouldn't help you. It'd kill you faster.'

'I can vouch for that,' Dani said.

'Yeah.' Maz nodded.

'So can I,' Jarvis agreed.

'And me,' Lassa called.

'Me too,' Sark stated.

XXX

Dani, Lassa, Maz, Jarvis and Sark ran up to the bell tower. The Doctor appeared to be playing the organ. Dani and Jarvis were the first to figure out what he was doing. Then Maz figured it out. Lassa and Sark were the only ones who didn't know but they trusted Dani enough and she clearly trusted the Doctor enough.

XXX

They stood atop the bell tower and watched Lazarus plummet to the ground. Dani shook her head. She was no stranger to the forces of gravity and the vulnerabilities of the human race. There was no way he could survive that fall.

'Welcome to my life,' she said.

'We'll been in it for the last three years,' Jarvis pointed out.

The five aliens on the balcony all laughed together.

XXX

When they came out of the church, one of the blue-skinned agents was there with a young child—her daughter.

'Is he dead?' she asked.

'As a doornail,' Dani said.

The little girl ran over to the Doctor and looked up at him, purple eyes shining. 'You're a Time Lord?' she asked in wonder.

'That's right.' The Doctor grinned and crouched down to her level.

'Wow!' The little girl started jumping up and down in excitement. 'My mummy says Time Lords were starterer than anybody else! And that they were real stuck-up! What's "stuck-up" mean, Mr. Time Lord?'

All the adult aliens present sniggered to themselves, except the Doctor. He grinned wider.

'It means they think they're better than everyone else,' he told her. 'But I'm the last one. I don't think that.'

The little girl stopped jumping and cocked her head in confusion, her orange hair swinging down. 'Is that good?'

'Yes, Tha-Kan-Al,' her mother said. 'It's good. Now come back here.'

'Bye-bye, Mr. Time Lord.' Tha-Kan-Al waved as she moved away and back over to her mother.

The Doctor stood up.

'Nice to see you haven't lost your touch,' Dani remarked to the Doctor.

'Oi!' he snapped, playfully boxing her over the ear. 'Watch it, reform!'

XXX

The Doctor and Dani stood in her flat in front of the TARDIS.

'You still wanna come with me?' the Doctor asked.

'Yeah,' Dani said. 'I think I have to.'

The Doctor cocked his head. 'Why?'

'Because of something that happened,' Dani said. 'And something a future version of you told me.'

He waited.

'Let's just say I know what Rose looks like,' Dani said.

A confused look crossed the Doctor's face. 'But you said you've never met her.'

'Met and seen.' Dani held up her finger. 'Different things. It was New Year's Day of 2005 and I was driving past the Powell Estate. I sensed you and pulled over to have a little sticky-nose. I saw a future version of you—this face and regenerating—talking to Rose from the shadows. She thought you'd had a few too many pulls from the old flask, which was kinda funny to me. You asked her the date and told her you thought she was going to have a great year. That seemed to make her day. When she went in I went over to see if you needed a hand.' She paused. 'That was when you told me. You said that she was a future companion and I shouldn't meet her because the next time I saw you, I had never met her. You told me when we met again at the Royal Hope Hospital, I would go with you again. I forgot about it after a while. Until a few days ago, really. Carly actually had to remind me. My Foundation understand. They know how important this is.' She leaned against the TARDIS. 'That's not all. You told me something else. You said that, no matter what happens, you need a companion to stop you when you're going too far and push you to keep going. You said you almost learned that the hard way.'

It was the Doctor's turn to pause. He considered this for a long moment. She had come to him because the Sovereign had told her to but she had stayed because she knew it was established history. She had done what he'd always taught her to. He grinned as he opened the TARDIS door.

'So where do you want to go next?' he finally asked.

'Let's get back to where we were this morning,' Dani suggested as she ran in ahead of him. Then she turned around. 'Before Jarvis called. Surprise me.'

* * *

><p>Rose laid in bed. Every sound was torture to her throbbing head and burning hot brain:<p>

A tap being turned on and off, but not properly. Dripping.

Her mum's slippers shuffling across the carpet.

Tony giggling as he learned how to walk.

An insect buzzing.

Her dad and Mickey whispering about something.

The maid cleaning outside the room.

And, worse still, she was humming.

Every slight movement Rose made.

All of it hurt her throbbing head.

She'd thought Carly was exaggerating. She should really know better by now. Carly was suddenly there, by her beside. Her telepathic whisper was gentle on Rose's changing and aching mind.

_You will wake up when the Doctor does._ She thought.

Then she was gone. Rose really hated her sometimes. She was so annoying and cryptic about the whole thing. It was like having your own Riddler from _Batman_, except she was a good guy.

Rose wished for the Doctor. He'd hold her, keep noise down to a minimum. He'd take care of her properly.

_My Doctor._ She thought a little hopelessly.


	6. 42

**What would happen if it turned out Rose's presence in the parallel world caused a misbalance?**

**(No Martha or Jones family in this one)**

Chapter 6: 42

Jackie Tyler crouched by her daughter's bed. Rose was pale and tired and she refused to let a doctor look at her. She was also running a fever, but she was still conscious.

'Come on, sweetheart,' Jackie whispered. 'Let us call someone to take a look at you.'

'No, I'm fine,' Rose murmured. 'You call someone when you don't know what's going on. I know what's going on. It'll pass.'

Jackie sighed in defeat and stood up. If Rose didn't want someone to have a look at her, she wouldn't let anyone have a look at her. Ill or not, if they called someone, Rose would lock them out of her room or something.

There was nothing they could do.

* * *

><p>The Doctor and Dani were checking the computers of the base that was harvesting from a sun.<p>

'Korwin, can you answer?' McDonnell called. Then she stepped back. 'Where the hell is he? He should be up here.'

'If I'd met him, I might be able to answer that,' Dani remarked.

'Oh, we're in the Torajii system!' the Doctor exclaimed. 'Lovely.'

'That's a long way from home,' Dani remarked.

'Half a universe away.' The Doctor went over to McDonnell. 'And you're still using energy scoops for fusion. Hasn't that been outlawed yet?'

She looked over as one of the men came down. 'We're due to upgrade next docking. Scan all engine reports.'

'In other words, yes.' Dani sniggered.

Another one of the men came over and to the computer. It beeped.

'No response,' he said.

'What?' McDonnell asked, coming over to have a look.

Dani looked up for the third time since they'd gotten here as McDonnell checked the computer and the guy went and checked the wires.

'They're burnt out,' he called back. 'The controls are wreaked. I can't get them back online.'

'Oh, come on,' the Doctor said. 'Auxiliary engines. Every craft's got auxiliaries engines.'

'We don't have access from here,' McDonnell said. 'The auxiliary controls are in the front of the ship.'

'There are 29 password-sealed doors between us and them,' the guy added. 'You'll never get there on time.'

'Please.' Dani scoffed. 'Don't challenge us with locked doors.'

'They're not just sealed, they're deadlock sealed,' the guy told her.

The Doctor nodded his head and Dani moved off.

'So a sonic screwdriver's no use,' the Doctor muttered.

'Nothing's any use!' the guy exclaimed. 'We've got no engines, no time and no chance!'

'Oh, listen to you!' The Doctor groaned. 'Defeated before you even started. Where's your Dunkirk spirit?'

Dani was back.

'What?' the Doctor asked.

'Something tells me I shouldn't kick out the doors,' Dani said. 'If we're going through, we're going through slowly.'

'Who's got the door passwords?' the Doctor asked McDonnell.

'They're randomly generated,' the other man said. 'Reckon I'd know most of them. Sorry.' He introduced himself. 'Riley Vashtee.'

'Then what are you waiting for Riley Vashtee?' the Doctor asked. 'Get on with it.'

'Well, it's a two person job,' Riley said. 'One to take this for the questions.' Riley took a pack down and grabbed a contraption. 'The other to carry this. The oldest and cheapest security system around, eh, Captain?'

'Reliable and simple,' she responded. 'Just like you, eh, Riley?'

'Try and be helpful, get abuse,' Riley remarked. 'Nice.'

'I'll give you a hand,' Dani said. 'May as well do something besides stand around doing nothing but listen to him prattle on about things only I understand.'

The Doctor knew Dani really wanted to go because she wanted to know what had made her instincts stop her from kicking 29 doors in. He did too but he wanted to find out from here.

'It's remotely controlled by the computer panel,' Riley told her. 'That's why it needs two.'

Dani followed him and glanced over her shoulder at the Doctor. He didn't need to tell her to be careful. She could take care of herself.

'_McDonnell.'_ A voice came over the intercom. _'It's Ashton.'_

'Where are you?' McDonnell asked. 'Is Korwin with you?'

'_Get up to the med centre now,'_ Ashton told her.

The Doctor and McDonnell ran past Dani and Riley. The Doctor pressed an ear-com. to the table next to Dani and she picked it up and put it on. They came into the med centre.

'I've got to stop it!' a guy ground out as his body spasmed.

'Korwin, it's Abi,' a girl told him. 'Open your eyes. I need to take a look at you.'

'Korwin!' McDonnell called. 'What's happened? Is he okay?'

'Help!' Korwin yelled. 'Help me! It's burning me!'

The Doctor stopped next to Abi. 'How long's he been like this?'

'Ashton just brought him in,' Abi answered.

The Doctor pulled out the sonic and flicked it on.

'What are you doing?' McDonnell demanded.

'Don't get too close,' the Doctor ordered as he scanned Korwin.

McDonnell moved around and closer. 'Don't be so stupid! He's my husband.'

'And he's just sabotaged our ship,' Ashton told her.

'What?' McDonnell asked.

'He went mad,' Ashton told her. 'He put the ship under secure closure. Then he sent the heat pulse to melt the control.'

'No way!' McDonnell insisted. 'He wouldn't do that.'

'I saw it happen, Captain,' Ashton told her.

The Doctor tucked the sonic away in his jacket. 'Korwin? Korwin, open your eyes for me for a second.'

'I can't!' Korwin yelled.

'Yeah, of course you can,' the Doctor told him. 'Go on.'

'Don't make me look at you,' he begged. 'Please.'

'All right, all right, all right.' The Doctor picked something up. 'Just hold on. Sedative?'

He injected it in. Korwin slumped.

'What's wrong with him?' McDonnell asked.

'Rising body temperature,' the Doctor answered. 'Unusual energy readings. Stasis chamber. I do love a good stasis chamber. Keep him sedated in there. Regulate the body temperature.'

Abi went off to do that.

'And just for fun, run a bio-scan, a tissue profile and a metabolic detail,' he said.

'Just doing them now,' Abi told him.

'Oh, you're good,' the Doctor told her. 'Anyone else presenting these symptoms?'

'Not so far,' Abi answered.

'Well, that's something,' the Doctor murmured.

'Will someone tell me what is the matter with him?' McDonnell demanded.

'Some sort of infection,' the Doctor told her. 'We'll know more after the test results. Now, allons-y! Back downstairs, eh? See about those engines. Go.'

Ashton ran off.

'Hey,' the Doctor told McDonnell. 'Go.'

She glanced at her husband and then she ran off.

'Call us if there's news,' the Doctor told Abi, heading out himself. 'Any questions?'

'Yeah,' Abi said. 'Who are you?'

The Doctor paused. 'I'm the Doctor.' Then he was gone.

XXX

Dani looked over at Riley. 'Ready yet?'

'All right,' Riley told her. 'Fix the clamp on.'

Dani did as she was told. She looked back. 'So, what are you typing?'

'These doors trip code is the answer to a random question set by the crew,' Riley answered. 'Nine tours back, we got drunk, thought them up. Reckoning was, if we're hijacked, we're the only ones who know all the answers.'

'So you type in the right answer and then…?' Dani asked.

'This sends a remote pulse to the clamp,' Riley told her. 'But we only get one chance per door. Get it wrong, the whole system freezes.'

'Bad idea to get it wrong, then,' Dani remarked.

'Okay,' Riley said. ''Date of the SS Pentallian's first flight?' That's all right.' He hit in the answer. 'Go.'

She pushed open the door.

'Twenty-eight more to go,' Riley stated.

The two of them ran through to the next door.

XXX

The Doctor went to the intercom. 'Abi, how's Korwin doing? Any result from the bio-scan.'

'_He's under heavy sedation,'_ Abi answered. _'I'm just trying to made sense of this data. Give me a couple of minutes and I'll let you know.'_

The Doctor nodded and left the intercom.

XXX

Dani and Riley ran to the next door.

'_Dani, Riley, how are you doing?'_ the Doctor called through the intercom.

'Area 29,' Dani answered. 'We're at the door to the next one.'

'_Yeah, you've gotta move faster,'_ the Doctor told them.

'Riley, what's the next one?' Dani asked.

'"Find the next number in the sequence: 313, 331, 367,"' Riley read. 'What?'

'Didn't you say the crew knew all the answers?' Dani asked.

'The crew's changed since we set the questions,' Riley answered.

'Why am I unsurprised?' Dani grumbled.

'_379,'_ the Doctor called.

'A sequence of happy primes?' Dani asked.

'_Yeah,'_ the Doctor agreed.

'Punch it in, Riley,' Dani told him.

'Are you sure?' Riley asked. 'We only get one chance.'

'Oh, boy.' Dani knew what was coming next.

'_Any number that reduces to one when you take the sum of the square of its digits and continue iterating until it yields to one is a happy number.'_ The Doctor explained at a mile a minute. _'Any number that doesn't, isn't. A happy prime is a number that's both happy and prime. Now type it in!'_

Riley typed it in and the door opened. Dani shrugged. She lugged the contraption onto her shoulder and they kept moving.

'_Keep moving as fast as you can,'_ the Doctor told them as they quickly ran to the next door. _'And, Dani, be careful. There maybe something else on board this ship.'_

'Really?' Dani asked. 'Anytime you got good news, feel free to tell me.'

'_Will do,'_ the Doctor agreed. _'See you.'_

They continued on.

'"Classical music: who had the most pre-download number ones. Elvis Presley or the Bee-atles?"' Riley read. 'Oh, this is a nightmare.'

'Elvis had the most pre-downloaded number ones,' Dani answered. 'And it's pronounced "Beatles".'

'How do you know that?' Riley asked.

Dani considered for a moment. 'It's unlikely you'd believe me.'

They kept moving. Riley froze as there was a loud scream, but Dani pulled him forward. She knew it was Lerner but she also knew the Doctor would get there first. Anyway, they couldn't worry about something else when they had to get to the auxiliary engines ASAP.

'We have to keep moving,' she said. 'The Doctor will deal with it.'

XXX

The Doctor, McDonnell and one of the men ran into the med centre. They all looked around. There was no one there anymore. Neither Korwin, nor Abi Lerner. It meant that they were attacked by something.

'Korwin's gone.' McDonnell stated the obvious.

'Oh, my God,' the guy murmured.

They turned and saw a burned imprint of Abi in the wall. The Doctor moved closer to examine it. He had a nasty suspicion that it wasn't just a shape. And he soon saw that he was absolutely right.

'Tell me that's not Lerner,' the guy said.

The Doctor ran his fingers over the edge of the burn mark. Human DNA met his fingertips. He immediately knew what it was.

'Endothermic vaporisation,' the Doctor murmured. Then he turned around. 'I've never seen one this ferocious.'

He looked thoughtful. He remembered what Korwin had said. And it now became apparent that Abi had been attacked, but Korwin hadn't. He'd been the attacker.

'"Burn with me",' the Doctor quoted.

'That's what we heard Korwin say,' the guy said.

The Doctor crossed over to the bio-scan results.

'What?' McDonnell asked. 'You think…no way. Scannell, tell him. Korwin is not a killer. He can't vaporise people. He's human.'

'These bio-scan results.' The Doctor held them up. 'Internal temperature, 100 degrees. Body oxygen replaced by hydrogen. Your husband hasn't been infected. He's been overwhelmed.'

'The test results are wrong,' McDonnell insisted, snatching it away.

'What is it, though?' The Doctor stood up and started pacing. 'A parasite? A mutagenic virus? Something that needs a host body, but how did it get inside him?'

'Stop talking like he's some kind of experiment,' McDonnell told him.

'Where's the ship been?' the Doctor asked. 'Have you made planet-fall recently?'

McDonnell shook her head. The Doctor knew he needed some other explanation. There had to be something.

'Docked with any other vessels?' he asked. 'Any sort of external contact at all?'

'What is this?' McDonnell demanded. 'An interrogation?'

'We've got to stop him before he kills again,' the Doctor told her.

'We're just a cargo ship,' McDonnell told him.

'Doctor, if you give her a minute…' Scannell suggested.

She was hesitant. 'I'm fine.' She turned back around. 'I need to warn the crew.'

XXX

'_Everybody listen to me.'_ McDonnell's voice rang over the whole ship. Dani and Riley looked up. _'Something has infected Korwin. We think…he killed Abi Lerner. None of you must go anywhere near him. Is that clear?'_

Dani considered this. Something had infected Korwin and she could feel a huge presence. It was rolling around the place, screaming in agony.

XXX

The Doctor was looking at Korwin's x-rays. He knew he had to find something to, at the very least, stop him. There was no question of curing him. Of course, his wife still wanted to know.

'Is the infection permanent?' McDonnell asked. 'Can you cure him?'

He looked at her. 'I don't know.'

'Don't lie to me, Doctor,' McDonnell told him. 'Eleven years we've been married. We chose this ship together. He keeps me honest. So I don't want false hope.'

'The parasite's too aggressive,' the Doctor told her. 'Your husband's gone. There's no way back. Sorry.'

McDonnell nodded. 'Thank you.'

He stepped forward. 'Are you certain nothing happened to provoke this? Nobody's working on anything secret? Cause it's vital that you tell me.'

'I know every inch of this ship,' McDonnell told him. 'I know every detail of my crew's lives. There is nothing.'

'Then why is this thing so interested in you?' the Doctor asked.

'I wish I knew,' she responded.

The Doctor scrutinised her. She didn't know, that much was true, but she was still lying. Something she'd done, she was hiding from him. She may have loved her husband but whatever had happened, she loved more. He got the distinct impression that fusion scoops _were_ illegal and she didn't want to end up in jail.

XXX

Dani and Riley ran through door 17. Dani could sense another of the crew had died. She'd pinpointed Korwin and knew he was heading in Ashton's direction. But he was heading in anyone's direction at any time. The most she could do was keep tabs on him. Then she felt Ashton going down.

'Oh…damn,' she said.

'What?' Riley asked.

'Your body count's up to three,' Dani answered.

Riley froze. 'How do you know?'

'You ask that question a lot,' Dani told him, pushing him forward. 'Never mind how I know. Keep moving!'

He went to the next computer and hit it. 'Come on! Everything on this ship is so cheap!'

Suddenly the door opened and Dani immediately realised who it was.

'Korwin,' Dani muttered.

She grabbed Riley's shoulder and pulled him back. Korwin stepped out of the smoke and into the room. Except this time, there was another one somewhere else. It may not have been Korwin.

'Burn with me,' he said in a gravelly voice.

Dani grabbed Riley and tugged him back. Riley opened the door to the air lock and they climbed in.

'What is happening on this ship?' Riley asked.

'I think you lot have offended something,' Dani responded. 'That's the only explanation I can think of. What's this? The air lock?'

'Airlock field,' the computer reported. 'Jettison escape pod.'

'It's not about to launch is it?' Dani asked. 'Cause if it does, we're heading straight into the sun.'

'Didn't think of that,' Riley said.

Dani pulled out the earpiece and pressed it to her ear. 'Doctor! Little problem, here!'

'_What is it?'_ the Doctor asked.

'Mr. Burn-with-me started chasing us and now we're stuck in an escape pod.' She felt the pod shift. 'Heading for the sun.'

There was a pause. _'I'm coming!_ _I'm not gonna lose you too, Dani!'_

'Good to know,' Dani remarked as he cut the connection and she pulled it out and pressed the earpiece back into her pocket.

XXX

The Doctor saw it.

'Enough!' the Doctor yelled. 'What do you want? Why this ship? Tell me!'

The creature inside roared out and punched the control panel. The Doctor knew the circuit was crushed. They wouldn't be able to stop the escape pod from jettisoning.

'Come on,' the Doctor told him. 'Let's see you. I want to know what you really are.'

It went to raise the mask but suddenly stumbled back, crying out in pain. Then it straightened up and marched right past him. The Doctor only had one thing on his mind now. To get Dani out of that pod. Out of danger. He wasn't going to lose her too.

XXX

'The wonderful world of space travel,' Riley remarked as he and Dani watched the ship shrink as they headed for the sun. 'The prettier it looks, the more likely it is to kill you.'

'Nine times out of ten, yeah,' Dani said. 'I remember, when I was a kid, I saw this thing. It was the most gorgeous thing I'd ever seen. But I didn't get a proper look at it. The Doctor slapped his hand over my eyes. Said if I looked at it anymore, it'd kill me. He was right too. Someone else wasn't so smart. Nothing left of them now.'

'You been around him a while,' Riley observed.

'Since I was five,' Dani answered. 'Always been the same, no matter how much he changed. The hero, the miracle-worker.'

'A miracle, we could use,' Riley told her. 'But it's too late for that now. Our heat shields will pack in any minute and then we go into freefall. We'll fall into the sun way before he has a chance to do anything.'

Dani smiled. 'Don't underestimate him. I've seen him do things people would claim no one could do. For him, "impossible" is just a phrase to prove wrong. I've believed in him since the first time he picked me up.'

'Then you're lucky,' Riley told her. 'I've never found anyone worth believing in.'

Dani sat back. 'No one?'

'The job doesn't lend itself to stable relationships,' Riley told her.

'What about your family?' Dani asked.

'My dad's dead,' Riley said. 'I haven't seen my mum in six years. She didn't want me to sign on for cargo tours. Things were said, since then, all silent. She wanted to hold onto me. I know that. God, she's so stubborn.'

'You're lucky you have a family,' Dani told him. 'My parents…and my brothers died when I was five. That's how I met the Doctor. I curled up to cry and die on a barren rock. I don't have parents to argue or bond with and I don't have my brothers to pick on and boss around. Doctor or no, it's still lonely.'

Riley put a hand on Dani's shoulder.

'If he found you when you were five and you've been with him all that time, isn't he like your brother?' he asked.

Dani barked out a laugh. 'More like a very strange dad.'

They grinned at each other. Dani slumped back. She could feel the Doctor moving. She and Riley sat in silence as they moved but Dani felt the Doctor's determination as he moved. Then the pod surged very suddenly and they were heading back towards the ship.

'What happened?' Riley asked.

'The Doctor happened.' Dani moved over to the controls. 'Here, see? We're being magnetically pulled back to the ship. I told you not to underestimate him.'

'I don't think I ever will again.' Riley chuckled in relief.

Dani looked out the window. _Uh oh._

The Doctor had been possessed by this parasite.

XXX

The Doctor felt the pain and the burning and it hurt. Dani was at his side in an instant as soon as the pod came in.

'Doctor!' she called. 'Doctor, what's going on! What is it?'

The Doctor's eyes opened slightly and his eyes glowed. 'Stay away from me!' He slammed his eyes shut.

'Fat chance,' Dani told him.

'What's going on?' McDonnell asked.

'It's your fault, Captain McDonnell!' the Doctor snapped.

'Riley, get down to area 10 and help Scannell with the doors,' McDonnell barked out the order. 'Go!'

'You mined that sun!' the Doctor snapped. 'Stripped its surface for cheap fuel! You should have scanned for life!'

'I don't understand,' McDonnell said.

'I do,' Dani told her passively. 'That sun was alive. It's alive, wounded and angry! That's why this is happening!'

'That sun's alive.' The Doctor gasped, repeating what Dani had said. 'A living organism. They scooped out its heart, used it for fuel and now it's screaming!'

'What do you mean?' McDonnell demanded. 'How can a sun be alive? Why is he saying that?'

'Because it's living in me,' the Doctor panted.

'Oh, my God!' McDonnell slapped her hands over her mouth.

'Humans!' the Doctor yelled in agony. 'You grab whatever's nearest and bleed it dry! You should've scanned!'

'It takes too long,' McDonnell said. 'We'd be caught. Fusion scoops are illegal.'

He cried out in pain. 'Dani, you've got to freeze me, quickly!'

'Stasis chamber?' Dani asked, pulling him up.

'You've got to freeze me to below -200,' he told her. 'Freeze it out of me. It'll use me to kill you if you don't. The closer we get to the sun, the stronger it is—' He cried out in pain. 'Med centre! Quickly! Quickly!'

Dani slung him over her shoulders. She hurried to the med centre and McDonnell followed them.

XXX

Dani pushed the Doctor into the stasis chamber. And she ran to the controls.

'But you don't know how this equipment works!' McDonnell insisted. 'You'll kill him. Nobody can survive those temperatures.'

'Newsflash,' Dani told her. 'He and I aren't human. Both of us can survive those temperatures.'

'Let me help you then,' McDonnell said.

'Fine,' Dani said. 'Set the system. But, be warned, I'm watching you.'

McDonnell nodded. She set the dials and Dani pushed the Doctor fully into the Stasis Chamber.

'Look after him,' Dani told her, as she headed out the room.

'Where are you going?' McDonnell demanded.

Dani paused. 'That chill may not be enough to keep him and get the sun out of his body. He may need some added motivation. I think I know.'

Dani bolted. She ran through the ship until she got to the TARDIS. She unlocked the door and ran in. She bolted down the corridors.

'Come on, girl!' she called to the ship. 'Come on! I need something of hers! He can't look, but he should be able to use the other senses. Touch! Smell! Sound! Taste! I need something to work with here!'

She skidded to a stop and a door appeared in front of her. It was a polished steel door with a pink "R" painted on it. Usually the companion's bedroom door was blank and the inside was what was decorated.

'That's new,' she remarked, activating the opening touch-pad and the door slid open.

Dani stepped inside. She'd only seen the girl from the distance, but she could see this room clearly belonged to her. It was messy and the TARDIS had clearly been keeping the room clean.

'Photos?' Dani went through the stuff. 'No.'

She picked up a hair brush. Blonde hair was still tangled in the teeth. Dani sniffed it. Still smelt strongly of human. She yanked the hair out of the brush. Then she looked around some more. A perfume bottle, a t-shirt.

'That'll do,' she muttered.

She grabbed them and bolted out of the room.

XXX

The Doctor knew it was below -200 degrees in there, but he couldn't feel the chill, only the heat.

'Dani!' McDonnell suddenly called. 'About time you got back!'

'Had to find a room,' Dani answered. 'How is he?'

'It doesn't seem to be dying,' McDonnell remarked. 'What's that stuff?'

'Motivation,' Dani answered.

He felt Dani come closer and the glove was ripped off of one of his hands. Dani pressed something soft but mattered into his hand.

'Hair?' McDonnell asked. 'What's blonde hair going to do?'

'I've also got a perfume bottle and a shirt,' Dani said.

As she spoke the Doctor inhaled and the scent Rose's perfume wafted up his nose and sat on the back of his tongue. Then he felt lightweight cotton pressed to his skin and the smell that was purely Rose came to him. He let himself be swallowed by these sensations. He had to fight this off. It was what she would want him to do.

'He seems calmer,' McDonnell remarked in awe. 'Still in pain, but calmer.'

'He is,' Dani said.

Suddenly the Doctor saw something.

Rose.

_She was laying in a large pink bed. But she was pale, sweating heavily and her breathing was laboured as if she was in pain._

'Rose…' he whispered.

Dani and McDonnell didn't exist.

_Suddenly she raised her head and winced at the movement._

'_Oh, no, you don't,' she murmured._

_She, with great effort, pushed herself out of bed and paused, steadying herself. Then she staggered over to the door and locked it. Her legs gave out and she collapsed. The Doctor, even though he knew this was a hallucination, found himself stepping forward with the intention of catching her._

_Just because she'd fallen, however, didn't mean she was about to give up. She dragged herself back to bed and, just as she was pulling herself back onto it, someone tried the door._

'_Rosie!' Pete called. 'Come on, Rose. It's Dr. Hames. He just wants to have a look at you.'_

'_Go away!' she called and seemed to regret it immediately. But still continued. 'I told you it'll pass on its own. And I also said human doctors are for people who don't know what's happening. I know. I don't need Dr. Hames to see me.'_

Then the Doctor was back in the stasis chamber. The heat was gone and he opened his eyes. He looked at his hand. Rose's blonde hair was there, from a hairbrush. Tangled around itself. He moved out of the chamber and Dani was there, looking relieved.

'What happened?' he asked as he set the hair down and started pulling the space suit off.

'Korwin attacked again,' Dani told him. 'McDonnell launched them both out an air lock and into the sun. It's gone now. So what happened to you?'

'Hallucination,' the Doctor told her. 'Dani, call Carly. I want to talk to her.'

'When we get off this ship, eh?' Dani suggested.

XXX

'This is never your ship,' Scannell stated.

'Compact, eh?' the Doctor responded as he and Dani came around the front. 'And another good word: robust. Barely a scorch mark on her.'

'So you guys gonna be just drifting with no fuel?' Dani asked.

'We've sent out an official mayday,' Riley told them. 'The authorities will pick us up soon enough.'

'Though how we explain what happened…' Scannell began.

'Just tell them,' the Doctor said as he opened the TARDIS door. 'That sun needs care and protection just like any other living thing.'

Scannell nodded. The Doctor went in. Dani grinned.

'Thanks for the help, boys,' Dani told them. Then she moved forward and pecked Riley on the cheek. 'Thanks for the distraction in the pod.'

He grinned. Dani followed the Doctor in.

XXX

Dani made the call when they were in the time vortex.

'Here.' Dani handed the Doctor her mobile. 'Carly's on the line.'

The Doctor took the phone from her. 'Carly Alice? Sovereign of the 21st Century?'

'_I never like it when someone answers the phone with that line,'_ an American accent responded. _'It usually means they want to ask me something I'm probably not allowed to tell them.'_

'Just before I broke the sun's hold, I had a hallucination,' the Doctor told her. 'Do you know what the hallucination was?'

'_Of Rose,'_ Carly answered.

'Was it real?' he asked. 'Was my mind connecting to her?'

Carly hesitated. _'Maybe._ _And maybe not. I can't tell you. But what I can tell you is this: She's safe. You don't have to worry about her.'_

'That doesn't answer my question,' he told her.

'_Life sucks,'_ she said. _'And then you die.'_

* * *

><p>'I told you it wasn't going to work,' Mickey told Pete and Jackie. 'You can't sneak up on Rose anymore. Whether there's something wrong with her or not.'<p>

'Unless you happen to be a highly intelligent alien life form,' Jake said.

Mickey shrugged, accepting the point.

'My little girl's sick!' Jackie said, emotionally. 'She won't let us near her and she won't tell us what's wrong. I don't know what to do.'

Pete rubbed her arm soothingly. 'Most we can do right now is hope she's right. I know the odds of it, but she won't let anyone who could tell us what's wrong near her so we have to hope that it will pass.'


	7. Human Nature & Family of Blood

**What would happen if it turned out Rose's presence in the parallel world caused a misbalance?**

**(No Martha or Jones family in this one)**

Chapter 7: Human Nature/Family of Blood

_The Doctor and Dani dived into the TARDIS and the doors slammed behind them but not before a shot was fired into the ship._

'_Get down!' the Doctor yelled._

_They both hit the ground before the shots were fired. The Doctor slammed the door shut._

'_Dani, did they see you?' the Doctor asked, pulling her up._

'_No,' Dani said. 'I don't think so. My back was to them the whole time.'_

'_Off we go.' The Doctor jumped at the controls and the time rotor was soon moving. Dani moved to his side. She may have been raised on the TARDIS, but she still couldn't read Gallifreyan._

'_Ah!' the Doctor yelled in irritation. 'They're following us!'_

'_They're following us?' Dani asked in annoyance. 'What have they got? A vortex manipulator?'_

'_Stolen technology,' the Doctor said. 'They can follow us wherever we go. Right across the universe. They're never going to stop. Unless…I'll have to do it.' He turned to the girl. 'Dani, you trust me, don't you?'_

'_Since I was five-years-old,' Dani answered. 'Why?'_

'_Cause it all depends on you,' the Doctor told her._

'_What are you doing?' Dani asked as the Doctor ducked under the console. 'What am I supposed to do?'_

'_Take this watch because my life depends on it,' the Doctor answered._

'_Hold on, that's a fob watch,' Dani said._

'_And it's no ordinary fob watch,' the Doctor stated._

_Dani instantly understood. 'Oh, no! Do you have to?'_

'_Yes.'_

John Smith bolted awake. There was a knock at the door and he stood up and pulled on a dressing gown. Once he was decent, he called, 'Come in.'

John's younger sister, Dani walked in, carrying her own tray of breakfast and leading a maid in.

'Good morning, John.'

'Good morning, Dani.'

The maid set John's breakfast on the table and then handed him the morning newspaper.

'Thank you,' he said.

She nodded and walked around, opening the draperies. Dani sat down opposite John's place with her breakfast. John took his place opposite her as he read the paper. This was a tradition that was carried over from their childhood. Eating breakfast and supper together. They usually talked about what their plans for the day were and what actually happened through the day. Dani was John's little sister. He was bound to take care of her by family duty. And their parents had died. That was why she had come with him when he had taken on this job. She'd be with him until she got married. And it didn't look like that would happen anytime soon.

'Is it any good?' Dani asked, nodding to the newspaper.

'Not really,' John answered with a slight amused smile. 'No excitement for a man nowadays.'

Dani smiled ruefully. 'Depends who you are, I suppose.'

'It does.'

They were silent for a moment as they ate and John read the newspaper. But he couldn't focus. That dream was gnawing at his brain. Suddenly Dani leaned forward and pulled the newspaper out of his hand.

'If you can't focus on it, stop trying to read it,' she said. 'What's the matter? Did you have another peculiar dream?'

'Yes, I did,' John agreed.

'What happened this time?' Dani asked.

'I was the…adventurer again,' he said. 'This daredevil, a madman. "The Doctor", I'm called. And last night, I dreamt you were there.'

Dani looked up, interested.

'As my…companion,' John went on. 'I'm a man from another world, you know.' He looked over to the mantle. 'That thing.' He nodded to the Fob Watch there. 'The watch…it's funny how dreams slip away. But I do remember one thing. It all took place in the future. In the year of our Lord, 2007.'

'And what does the date on the paper say?' Dani asked with an amused chuckle, holding it up.

He smiled at his sister.

'It's Monday, November 10, 1913,' Dani said. 'And you're as human as I am.'

'Hmm, that's me,' John agreed. 'Completely human.'

He looked at his sister and chuckled lightly. Dani leaned back.

'You want the dreams to be real, don't you, brother?' she asked knowingly.

'Well, every man wants excitement in his life,' John allowed. 'And myself in my dreams has a lot more excitement than I do here and now.'

'Perhaps that's what the dreams are,' Dani suggested. 'A reflection of your desire to have more excitement in your life.'

'Perhaps,' John said.

'And people you know are often injected into your dreams, I've noticed,' Dani added.

'So they are.' John smiled. 'It was particularly exciting this time. I hate to lose it.'

'Do what you always do,' Dani told him.

'Oh…yes.' John got up and fetched his dream diary from the bookshelf. He missed Dani's amused look.

XXX

Dani came around and into the matron's sick bay. Joan Redfern. A nice enough woman, but the feelings developing between her and John Smith were sure to complicate matters.

Cruel as it sounded, she hoped Joan died if she ever found out about what was going on. It was even more cruel to allow her to find out the man she'd fallen in love with was really another man—another species—and already in love with a completely different woman. And this man didn't love her that way because he wasn't really John Smith.

'John,' Dani said. 'I heard you took a tumble. Are you all right?'

Apparently, he'd hit his head.

'I'm fine, Dani,' he told her. 'I'm absolutely fine—ow!'

Dani hid a snigger behind her hand as Joan said, 'Oh, please. I've had boys that complain less than you do.'

'He's never had that high of a threshold for pain,' Dani told Joan.

'Are you quite amused?' John asked irritably.

'Yes,' Dani answered.

XXX

'You lost the Fob Watch?'

John looked up at his little sister. He might have imagined it, but she looked awfully worried about one little watch.

'Yes,' he said. 'Don't worry. They're easily replaceable.'

She muttered something that sounded a lot like: 'Yeah, well, not that one.'

'I beg your pardon?' he asked.

'I said, you have a point on that one,' Dani said.

'Oh, yes,' John said. 'Uh…Dani. I was thinking I might show Joan the diary.'

Dani sat down. He thought he saw a look of worry cross her face. But then she said, 'If you like. You aren't worried about what she will think?'

'Of course I am,' John said. 'I'm worried she'll think me mad. But I am feeling strongly for her. And the first step would be complete honesty.'

'I know someone who could have used that advice. Of course, if you told him, you probably would have gotten a cussing earful.' Dani got up and walked out. 'Enjoy the evening, brother.'

XXX

Timothy held the Fob Watch and listened to the voices, watched the images. He jumped as a hand landed on his shoulder. It pulled him out. Mr. Smith's sister, Miss. Dani Smith was there.

'Hello, Timothy,' she said. 'What's the matter? You look like you're a million miles away.'

'I think this belongs to Mr. Smith.' Timothy handed her the watch.

She took it and looked at it. Then she looked at Timothy as if something occurred to her. She seemed to be thinking about it. 'Timothy. You may be able to help me, but first I have to be sure of what I think. I want you to say the first three words that come into your head. I don't care what they are.'

The words were strange, but Timothy said them. 'Skaro. Mondas. Gallifrey.'

'Good,' Dani told him. 'Then you can help me.'

'Please,' Timothy asked, 'do you recognise those words, Miss Smith?'

'Yes,' Dani said. 'But you shouldn't.'

'I don't,' Timothy said.

'You may find it interesting,' Miss Smith said. 'The order you said those words was the same order I thought them in.'

'So I read your mind?' Timothy asked.

'That's right,' Miss Smith told him. 'And that explains why you looked so far away. You were seeing and hearing what is contained within the watch, weren't you?'

'Yes, ma'am,' Timothy said. 'Mr. Smith isn't really Mr. Smith, is he?'

Miss Smith shook her head. 'And I'm not really Miss Smith. In truth, I have no last name. Where I come from, nobody has a last name.'

'I don't understand,' Timothy said. 'You were in the most amazing places. You could go anywhere in time and space and you loved it. Why on Earth would you give it up?'

'Because, we were being chased,' Dani told him. 'Well, the Doctor, specifically—that's his real name. He has an indefinite lifespan. This group of body-snatchers who call themselves the Family of Blood want his body for eternal life. So we hid. But they will find us. When they do, John Smith must be convinced to open this watch and become the Doctor once more. But he doesn't place enough importance on it. He doesn't realise how important it is. You do.'

'You're asking me to take care of it?' Timothy asked.

'Yes,' Dani answered. 'I'm John Smith's little sister. The Family know what the Doctor looks like. They'll know John Smith is the Doctor. And anyone "connected to him" will be seen as an accomplice. Or a companion. You're just one of John Smith's students. You're not "connected to him" by their standards. The watch is safer with you, Timothy.'

'I'll take care of it,' he promised.

'Fantastic,' Dani told him. 'Oh. And if you see anyone behaving oddly or looking a bit peculiar in the eyes, they've probably been possessed by a member of the Family of Blood so let me know.'

'I will.'

Dani grinned. 'Timothy Latimer, I like you.'

XXX

Dani froze as she came in and saw John Smith and Joan Redfern in a lip lock. She cleared her throat pointedly and they broke apart.

'Oh, Dani,' John said. 'I apologise. You probably didn't want to see that.'

'Not particularly, no.' Dani shifted her weight uncomfortably. 'I assume you've shown her your diary by this point?'

'Yes,' Joan said. 'It's terribly interesting what a man's mind can come up with.'

'Isn't it just.' Dani forced a smile.

'Well, I best be off,' Joan said. 'Goodnight, Dani.' She smiled at John. 'John.'

'Joan.' He smiled as she left. Then he turned a worried look to Dani. 'Are you all right with this?'

'With what?' Dani asked. 'You and Joan? Well, I'll tell you what. Don't make any plans to marry her within the next few months and I'll make up my mind about her. Beyond that, do as you please.'

John smiled. 'All right. And I'll tell her that.'

'Thank you,' Dani said.

XXX

John Smith knew that younger sisters could sometimes feel a bit scared and confused when their older brothers who they'd had to themselves for years, the way Dani had him, started to fall in love. That was why he asked Dani if she was okay. She seemed all right, but had asked he refrain from marrying Joan for a while. Then she had gone happily on her way. She'd only come in to say goodnight. He realised that was indeed the time.

_Where does the time go?_ He wondered as he watched his sister leave. He closed the door after her and then started getting ready for bed.

XXX

Dani watched John Smith and Joan Redfern dance around the floor at the annual ball.

This whole thing complicated matters. They had no idea what was coming and now John and gone and done the unthinkable. He'd fallen in love. Dani wondered how they were going to get through this.

XXX

Jeremy Baines snuck out of the school. He was going for a beer party and he wasn't going to miss it. No matter what that Mr Smith said. He really hated him. They guy was so annoying. And he got him into trouble all the time just because Jeremy knew who was beneath him. And Smith's sister wasn't much better.

XXX

There was an insistent knocking on Dani's bedroom door. As the moral code went, Dani wrapped a dressing gown around herself before she answered it. It was Timothy.

'Timothy,' she said. 'It's two o'clock in the morning. Don't you have curfew?'

'Something just shot out of the sky,' Timothy told her.

'Where?' Dani asked.

'Well, your window faces out there,' Timothy told her.

Dani pulled Timothy in and closed the door behind them. They rushed over to the window. Dani pulled the lace curtains aside and they looked out. There was a line of smoke that led into the forest. It was reminiscent of a jet-trial, but heavier.

'That's them,' Dani told Timothy. 'They're not concerned about being inconspicuous the way most extraterrestrials are. If someone catches them, they can just body-jump and take someone else's body.'

'So it's definitely them?' Timothy asked.

'We're about to find out,' Dani said. 'Baines has snuck out. And he's heading for the ship. If he happens across the Family, they'll steal his body and I'll know.' Dani and Timothy stood there for about five minutes before Dani said, 'It's the Family.'

'How much time have we got?' Timothy asked.

'About 24 hours, give or take,' Dani answered. 'They'll want to steal a body each before they come after the Doctor and me. That's how long it'll take. Lay low until the gunfire and the explosions stop then find us without the Family seeing you and bring us the watch.'

XXX

Dani looked down at one of the maids as she passed her—Jenny—and noticed she was possessed. So long as the Family didn't know what she looked like they were relatively safe. Then John Smith passed the corridor, muttering as he went through some papers. And the Family of Blood-possessed Jenny saw him.

_There goes that._ Dani thought.

She turned around and pointed a finger at her.

'I've got my eye on you, body-snatcher,' she said.

Then she strode off.

XXX

Dani could kick herself. Her timing assumption had been just about right and then, thick as a human, John Smith had called arms. Of course, men died. Only after they believed it and that was only because they were attacked by Son of Mine in the body of Jeremy Baines. Then they ran away and Dani had to tell him the truth.

'The bad news is you lost the Fob Watch,' she said. 'The good news is someone else found it. And I know who.'

There was a knock at the door and Dani let Timothy Latimer in.

XXX

'Hold it.' Dani held out the Fob Watch.

'I won't,' he responded.

'Please,' Dani begged. 'It's not going to bite you.'

'It told me to find you,' Timothy said. 'It and Dani both. It wants to be held.'

'You had this watch all this time?' Joan asked. 'Why didn't you return it?'

'Because Dani didn't think that Mr Smith realised just how important the watch really is,' Timothy said. 'And it was waiting. Then, because I was so scared of the Doctor.'

'That's not unusual, Timothy,' Dani told him. 'He scares a lot of people. Specifically people who are doing things that go against his moral codes.'

'Why?' Joan asked.

'Because…' Timothy hesitated. 'I've seen him. He's like fire and ice and rage. He's like the night and the storm and the heart of the sun.'

'Stop it,' John told him.

'He's ancient and forever.' Timothy ignored him. 'He burns at the centre of time and he can see the turn of the universe.'

'Stop it!' John ordered. 'I said stop it!'

But Timothy knew he couldn't stop. John Smith had to hear this. 'And he's wonderful,' Timothy said.

Dani nodded.

'I've still got this.' Joan pulled the book out. 'The journal.'

'Those are just stories,' John argued.

'No, they're not,' Dani said. 'They're the Doctor's memories.'

Suddenly there was an explosion and they all ran to the window. The deadly light show was happening outside.

_World War I,_ Dani thought. _This isn't meant to start until next year._

'They're destroying the village,' Joan murmured.

John snatched the watch from Dani.

'John,' Joan begged. 'Don't.'

'Can you hear it?' Timothy asked.

'Like he's asleep,' John answered. 'Waiting to waken.'

'But why did he speak to me?' Timothy asked.

'Oh, low level telepathic field,' John answered in a flippant, Doctor-like, that's-old-news tone. 'You were born with it. Just an extra synaptic engram causing…' He cut himself off and shook in terror as he stared down at the watch in his hand.

'Pure Doctor,' Dani explained to everyone else in the room.

'Is that how he talks?' he asked Dani.

'Yeah,' Dani agreed.

'You knew that?' he asked. 'And you sat there and watched while Ms Redfern and I…?'

'Yeah.' Dani shrugged. 'Sorry. I didn't really know what to do about it. I knew it'd go down badly if the Family found us, which they did, but nothing in my life has prepared me for having to break up two people. I don't think the Doctor even considered that it could happen.'

'Falling in love?' John asked. 'That didn't even occur to him?'

'Probably not, no,' Dani answered.

'Then what sort of a man is that?' John asked. 'And now you expect me to die?'

There was another explosion.

'I'm sorry,' Dani said. 'You have no choice. If I could, I'd fight those body-snatchers off myself but I don't know how to get rid of them. The Family's got a limited life span. That's why they need to consume a Time Lord. Or they die in three months. Kinda like mayflies.'

'So your job was to execute me?' John asked.

'No,' Dani said. 'My job was to protect the Doctor's body from the Family so he could come back. You're the Doctor's body.'

XXX

Joan looked at John Smith. She didn't want to lose him, like Dani had explained had to happen.

'Is he capable of love?' John asked.

Dani froze. Then she looked at him. 'Did you just ask if he was capable of love? Or am I hearing things?'

'No,' John told her. 'I want to know. You're the only one who knows him. Can he love?'

'You know him too,' Dani stated. 'But all right. He goes around saving planets and some kick him off, not wanting him back. Some don't even notice he even did anything and some assume the worst and some make a list of the dead after his name. Now, if he couldn't love, would he put up with that? Would he keep saving planets and people that don't give him an ounce of "thank you" if he couldn't love? I know I wouldn't. It's gotten to a point where he takes off when he's saved them.'

'What about the girl?' John asked.

'What, Rose?' Dani asked. 'Never met her.'

'But the way he acted around her?' John asked. 'The way he acts about her? Is he in love with her?'

'Yes,' Dani answered.

'Did he think I might fall in love?' John demanded.

'No,' Dani answered.

'Why not?' John was understandably angry now. 'Because I'm not supposed to be real? Because I'm a figment of his imagination? Because—'

'No.' Dani's calm answer cut him off. 'He understood that the minute he became you, John Smith would be a real man with his own thoughts, opinions and emotions. He may have given you his morals and principles, but you're still your own man.' She paused. 'The Doctor loved Rose more than a human could ever love anyone. He's got a vast brain span and two hearts. He loved Rose with everything he was. Nothing was more important than her. And the pain of losing her was something humans could never, ever even begin to imagine. Even if she's not dead. Parts of him leak out in you, John, and he knew that would happen. I guess he thought parts of the pain would too. And that kind of pain, he thought, would stop you from falling in love. Everytime you so much as looked at a woman that reminded him of Rose, the pain would shoot through your heart and that pain would make it impossible to fall in love.' She sat down. 'But, I suppose, you and he are more separate than he thought you'd be. You never felt the pain, did you? Not outside your dreams.'

John slowly shook his head. Joan couldn't imagine the overwhelming pain the Doctor must have lived with.

'Isn't it far more merciful that this Doctor is allowed to stay dead?' she asked Dani.

Dani paused. Not as if she was considering this viewpoint, but as if she had considered this and was looking for a way to explain the conclusion she had reached.

'No,' she said. 'If the Family hadn't shown up, it would have been. It would have been far kinder to let you two get married and grow old together. The Doctor would never have to feel that pain over losing Rose ever again. I'd keep the pretence up for the rest of my life just for that.' She paused again. 'But they found us.' She seemed to stare into space. 'They know what the Doctor looks like. They found us. No. Now, it wouldn't be better. They won't be satisfied until they get the Doctor. And if they don't get him…then all of humanity will be destroyed. Wiped from the face of the planet. Genocide.' She refocused. 'Anyway, I don't want to put any pressure on you, but up to you.'

Joan looked at John as he turned all this over in his head and it was hurting him immensely. He grabbed the Fob Watch and tried to take it out.

'If they want the Doctor, then they can have him!' John yelled.

'You stupid ape!' Dani yelled. 'That won't help!'

'If they get the Doctor, then…then…then…' he stammered.

'Then it all ends in destruction,' Joan said, looking up from the diary.

They all turned to face her. Dani took the watch from him.

'I never read to the end,' Joan told them. 'Those creatures would live forever. To breed and conquer. A war across the stars for every child.'

A man should not be seen at weakness and John was close to crying.

'Dani, Timothy,' Joan said. 'Would you leave us alone please?'

Dani seemed to understand. She took Timothy out, leaving the Fob Watch on the table.

* * *

><p>Rose bolted up in bed, her headache completely gone. All the pain, gone. Her mother came at her.<p>

'How's your head?' she asked.

'Headache's gone,' Rose said. 'I told you it'll pass. Nothing to worry about.'

'Uh…' Mickey stammered. 'Rose, when you sat up, it was kind of like when the Doctor wakes up from unconsciousness and sits up.'

'Yeah?' Rose asked with a sad smile. 'Good.'

* * *

><p>The Family turned around.<p>

'Just…' John said.

He spun around and accidentally threw a bunch of levers.

'Just stop the bombardment,' he said. 'That's all I'm asking. I'll do anything you want, just stop.'

'Say please,' said Father of Mine.

'Please,' he said.

Mother of Mine threw something. 'Wait a minute,' she said. Then she sniffed. 'Still human.'

'Look, I can't pretend to understand, not for a second, but I want you to know, I'm innocent in all this,' John insisted. 'He made me John Smith. It's not like I had any control over it.' He fell on some switches.

'He didn't just make himself human,' Mother of Mine said. 'He made himself an idiot.'

'Same thing, isn't it?' Son of Mine asked.

'I don't care about this Doctor or your family,' John said. 'I just want you to go! So I've made my choice.' He held up the Fob Watch. 'You can have him. Just take it, please. Take him away!'

Son of Mine came and took the watch. 'At last,' he breathed, taking the watch. He grabbed John as he tried to leave. 'Don't think that's saved your life!'

Then he pushed him back and John fell to the ground, hitting a bunched of senor activators as he went.

'Family of mine,' Son of Mine said. 'Now we shall have the lives of a Time Lord.'

He opened the watch and all the Family inhaled, preparing for the power. Which never came.

'It's empty!' Son of Mine exclaimed, turning back to John.

'Where's it gone?' John seemed on the verge of a panic attack.

'You tell me.' Son of Mine tossed it back and John caught it, suddenly calm as a cucumber.

John Smith was the Doctor again.

'Oh, I think the explanation might be you've been fooled,' the Doctor answered easily, standing up. 'By a simple olfactory misdirection. A little bit like ventriloquism of the nose. It's an elementary trick in certain parts of the galaxy. But it has got to be said—' He put his glasses on and leaned forward. '—I don't like the look of that hydrokinometer.' He looked over it. 'It seems to be indicating you've got energy feedback all the way through the retrostabalisers, feeding back into the primary heat converters. Oh! Cause if there's one thing you shouldn't have done, you shouldn't have let me press all those buttons.' He turned away. 'But, in fairness, I will give you one word of advice.' He offered. He said it with a grin just as the room went red. 'Run.'

He took off.

XXX

The ship exploded, knocking the Family to the ground and the Doctor knew Dani would be around momentarily. The Doctor went back stood over the Family of Blood. They knew they were in for it. Punishment worse than death. Dani was suddenly there.

'What are we going to do with them?' she asked.

XXX

'_He never raised his voice. That was the worst thing. The fury of the Time Lord. And then we discovered why. Why this Doctor—who had fought with gods and demons—why he had run away from us and hidden. He was being kind. He wrapped my father in unbreakable chains forged in the heart of a dwarf star. He tricked my mother into the event horizon of a collapsing galaxy to be imprisoned there forever. He still visits my sister, once a year, every year. I wonder if one day he might forgive her, but there she is. Can you see? He trapped her inside a mirror. Every mirror. If ever you look at your reflection and see something move behind you, just for a second, that's her. That's always her. As for me, I was suspended in time, and the Doctor put me to work standing over the fields of England as their protector. We wanted to live forever. So the Doctor made sure that we did.'_

XXX

Joan sat with her back to the door. She didn't want to look at the Doctor when he came. He may look different.

'Is it done?' she asked.

'It's done,' he said.

'The police and the army are at the school,' Joan told him. 'Parents have come to take the boys home. I should go. They'll have so many questions. I'm not sure what to say.' She turned around and saw he was the same. 'Oh. You look the same. Goodness, you must forgive my rudeness. I…I find it difficult to look at you. Doctor. Must call you Doctor. Where is he? John Smith.'

'He's in here somewhere,' the Doctor answered.

'Like a story,' Joan murmured. 'Could you change back?'

'Yes.'

'Will you?'

'No.' The Doctor answered without hesitation.

'I see,' Joan said, looking away. 'Well, then. He was braver than you, in the end. That ordinary man. You chose to change, he chose to die.'

'Come with me,' he said.

'Sorry?' Joan asked.

'Travel with me,' he clarified.

'As what?' Joan asked.

'My companion,' The Doctor answered.

'But that's not fair,' Joan told him. 'What must I look like to you, Doctor? I must seem so very small.'

'No,' the Doctor told her. 'We could start again. I'd like that.'

Dani stuck her head in the door. 'Stop trying to compensate.' Then she pulled her head out.

'We could try at least,' the Doctor said. 'Cause everything that John Smith is and was, I'm capable of that too.'

'I can't,' she said.

'Please come with me.'

'I can't.'

'Why not?'

'John Smith is dead and you look like him,' Joan answered.

'But he's here,' the Doctor said. 'Inside. If you look in my eyes.'

'Answer me this,' Joan answered, not looking. 'Just one question, that's all. If the Doctor ever visited us, never chosen this place on a whim, would anyone here have died?'

The look he gave her was tight. Cold.

'Oi!' Dani stuck her head in again. 'That's not fair! It's not like he killed them!'

'You can go,' Joan told him.

He walked out and took Dani with him.

XXX

The Doctor walked with Dani up the hill.

'It wouldn't have worked anyway,' Dani told him.

'What do you mean?' the Doctor asked.

'Just a minute.' Dani jumped to his other side and the wind picked up her hair. She looked out to the horizon. 'Look along behind me.'

He did as she said and he saw blonde hair waving in the wind and hazel eyes looking out to the horizon. Someone else in Dani's place.

'You're not seeing me, are you?' She pulled him out of it. 'Tell me who you're seeing.'

His Adam's Apple suddenly felt three times as big in his throat. 'I'm seeing Rose.'

'Exactly.' Dani moved back over to his other side, allowing him to pull out of it. 'I don't think you're over Rose, Doctor. And you never will be. If ever you had any stable relationships before her, you'll never be able to have another one unless you get her back.'

They were in front of the TARDIS. Before the Doctor could consider that, Dani turned her head. He looked. Timothy was coming.

'Tim Timothy Tim!' the Doctor greeted.

'I just wanted to say goodbye,' Timothy said. 'And thank you. Because I've seen the future and I know what must be done. It's coming, isn't it? The biggest war ever.'

'Yeah,' Dani agreed.

'You called it World War I?' Timothy asked.

'You heard that?' Dani asked. Then she seemed to remember. 'Oh, yeah. I was standing right next to you.'

The Doctor chuckled quietly. 'Tim, I'd be honoured if you'd take this.' The Doctor handed him the Fob Watch.

Timothy took it and then stared at it. 'I can't hear anything.'

'No, it's just a watch now,' the Doctor said. 'But keep it with you for good luck.'

'Don't get blown up,' Dani coached, coming over and giving him a hug.

Then Dani climbed into the TARDIS.

'You'll like this bit,' the Doctor told him.

He followed Dani in and moments later the TARDIS dematerialised.

**2007 war memorial**

Timothy, now an old man, sat in a wheel chair and listened to the priest.

'…they went with songs to the battle. They were young, straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow. They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted.'

Timothy turned his head and saw the Doctor and Dani, young as the day he'd last seen them, almost 90 years ago, and both wearing poppies. They smiled at him. Despite how time had aged him, they recognised him.

'They fell with their faces to the foe. They shall not grow old as we that are left grow old. Age shall not weary them, not the years condemn. At the going down of the sun and in the morning, we will remember them.'

Timothy looked down at the old Fob Watch.


	8. Blink

**What would happen if it turned out Rose's presence in the parallel world caused a misbalance?**

**(No Martha or Jones family in this one)**

Chapter 8: Blink

**London, England, 1969**

The Doctor leaned against the TARDIS. He smiled to himself, the wrinkles in his face deepening slightly. He brushed the black hair out of his eyes.

Zoë had taken Jamie to help her get some things of hers and bring them to the TARDIS. Meaning Jamie would come back with his arms full. Human girls like Zoë always had too much.

'Doctor?'

The voice was unfamiliar but the Doctor turned all the same. It was a girl with ebony hair, wearing sunglasses.

'Yes?' he asked.

'Hi, I'm a future companion,' she told him. 'And you, in my timeline, need a few things that you have to get and deliver back here.'

'Why do I have to get them?' the Doctor asked. 'Why can't he?'

'Because he's already done it,' the girl answered.

Couldn't exactly argue with that.

'What does he need?' the Doctor asked.

'These 17 DVDs.' The girl handed him a list. 'Those specific ones. Barcode and everything. Just put them in a box and address them to "Smith". Then deliver them there.' She pointed to a shop. 'I'm over there quite a lot.'

'All right.' The Doctor tucked the slip of paper away.

Then the girl skipped off merrily.

XXX

The Doctor looked up as the flat door opened and Dani came in. They shared the flat under the pretence—for the humans—that they were brother and sister. Dani was right, they now looked close enough in age and basic appearance that people would actually believe they were siblings.

'Did you do your part?' she asked, yanking the sunglasses off.

'Yeah,' the Doctor said. 'Did you know that house is deserted even now? But, anyway Sally Sparrow knows to duck. How about you?'

'Your second form is really short,' Dani told him. 'He only came up to my shoulder! I think that's the first you I've ever met that I'm taller than.'

'You enjoy that, don't you?' the Doctor asked, sonicing the device at his feet.

'Yeah.' Dani laughed. 'What is that thing anyway?'

'It's my timey-whimey detector.' The Doctor answered, 'Detective Inspector Billy Shipton will be touched by a weeping angel and down we go. He should land somewhere in London.'

'And this'll pick him up?' Dani asked. 'So we can find him?'

'Yeah.'

**London, England, 2007**

A young girl by the name of Sally Sparrow climbed over a fence an old house in the middle of the night. She glanced around, hoping no one saw her, and didn't see anyone anywhere. She made her way up to the house, opened the door and kicked the planks blocking the door out of the way. She walked into the old, beaten down house, shining the torch she'd brought around. Occasionally she's snap photos of it. It was in doing this, upstairs, that she came across the writing under the wallpaper. Curiously, she tore the paper away and as she uncovered more and read the message, her disbelief grew.

BEWARE

THE WEEPING ANGELS

OH AND DUCK

REALLY DUCK

SALLY SPARROW

DUCK NOW!

She ducked as a rock—a big and heavy one—flew in and hit the wall. Then she stood up and looked down at the rock. Then she looked outside. All there was out there was a stone angel. That looked like it was weeping.

A weeping angel.

Sally looked back at the words on the wall. Then she went back and pulled more wallpaper away and found it was signed.

LOVE FROM

THE DOCTOR

(1969)

She stepped back in fear and confusion. How could someone know this was going to happen four decades before it actually did?

XXX

Kathy Nightingale was woken up by her mobile ringing. 'Hello?'

'_Bit freaked.'_ It was Sally. _'Need to talk. Making you a coffee.'_

'Sally Sparrow, it's one in the morning,' Kathy said. 'Do you think I'm going out at one in the morning?'

'_No,'_ Sally answered. _'I'm in the kitchen. What's that on all the screens in your front room?'_

'Oh, God.' Kathy sighed irritably. Then she realised it and sat up. 'Oh, God. Sally, you've met my brother, Larry, haven't you?'

'_No,'_ Sally said.

'You're about to,' Kathy told her.

XXX

The next day, Sally to Kathy to the house and they both climbed over the fence.

'Okay,' Kathy said. 'Let's investigate. You and me, girl investigators. Love it. Hey! Sparrow and Nightingale. That so works.' By this time they were heading up the driveway.

'Bit ITV,' Sally told her.

'I know!' Kathy was excited about it at least.

But she started to get a little creeped out as soon as they entered the house.

'What did you come here for anyway?' Kathy asked.

'I love old things,' Sally said. 'They make me feel sad.'

'What's good about sad?' Kathy asked as Sally led her into the room.

'It's happy for deep people,' Sally answered.

Kathy went and looked outside. Sally followed her.

'The weeping angel,' Sally said.

'Wouldn't have that in my garden,' Kathy told her.

Sally suddenly noticed something. 'It's moved.'

'It's what?' Kathy asked.

'Since yesterday,' Sally responded. 'I'm sure of it. It's closer. It's got closer to the house.'

Kathy grinned and turned away. Sally thought about it and then decided she was being paranoid. She followed Kathy back inside.

'How can my name be written here?' Sally asked, going back over to the wall. 'How is that possible?'

Suddenly the doorbell rang.

'Who'd come here?' Kathy asked.

Sally went to answer it.

'What are you doing?' Kathy caught her arm. 'It could be a burglar!'

'A burglar who rings the doorbell?' Sally asked.

'Okay,' Kathy said. 'I'll stay here in case of…'

'In case of what?' Sally asked.

'Incidents?' Kathy suggested.

'Okay.' Sally went to answer it.

XXX

Kathy watched as Sally answered the door and it was a man. He was a bit good-looking. And he reminded her of someone.

'I'm looking for Sally Sparrow,' he said.

'How did you know I'd be here?' Sally asked.

He stepped inside and pulled something out of his jacket. 'I was told to bring this letter on this date at this exact time.' The man said, holding out a letter. 'To Sally Sparrow.'

'Looks old,' Sally observed.

'It is old,' the man responded. 'I'm sorry, do you have anything with a photograph on it, like a driving license?'

Sally reached into her coat, looking for what was requested. Kathy was distracted when she heard rattling. She turned to try and see what it was. Then she went out to the patio. It looked like the weeping angel was closer. Kathy decided she was getting as paranoid as Sally had been. She went back to the door.

'Yes,' the man said. 'Sorry. I feel really stupid. I was told to make absolutely sure. It's so hard to tell with these little photographs, isn't it?'

'Apparently,' Sally responded.

'Well, here goes, I suppose.' The man handed Sally her driver's license back and then handed her the letter. 'Funny feeling after all these years.'

'Who's it from?' Sally asked.

'Well, that's a long story, actually,' he told her.

'Give me a name?' Sally told him.

'Katherine Wainwright,' the man said. 'But, she specified I should tell you that, prior to marriage, she was called Kathy Nightingale.'

**Hull, England, 1920**

Suddenly Kathy was on the ground in a field. She got up and looked around. Okay, in a cow paddock. But she didn't know where. She saw someone and walked over.

'Excuse me,' she called. 'Where am I?'

He looked at her.

'I was in London,' she said. 'I was in the middle of London.'

'You're in Hull,' the guy told her.

'No, I'm not,' she said, unable to believe it.

'This is Hull,' the guy said.

'No, it isn't,' she said.

'You're in Hull,' the guy repeated.

'I'm not in Hull,' Kathy insisted. 'Stop saying Hull.'

He showed her the newspaper. 'Don't have that in London. There's no call for it. It's all Hull.'

She took the paper and read the date.

'1920?' she murmured.

She looked up at him. She threw the paper down and turned away. She had to sort it through her head.

'Where are you going?' the guy called.

She didn't answer. But she knew he followed her.

**London, 2007**

Sally read the letter and she could almost hear Kathy talking: _'My dearest Sally Sparrow, if my grandson has done as he promises he will, then as you read these words, it has been merely minutes since we last spoke. For you. For me, it has been over 60 years. The third of the photographs is of my children.' _Sally looked at the third photo. _'The youngest is Sally. I named her after you, of course.'_

'This is sick,' Sally said.

He seemed confused but then Sally ran up. 'Kathy?' she called, but she was gone. Vanished into thin air.

Sally saw more of the stone angels. One of them held a key. Deciding the key maybe important, she took it. But then there was something. A noise. And Sally fled the house, but not before grabbing the letters and photos that Kathy's grandson had left. She went to a café and sat down to read the rest of the letter.

'_I suppose, unless I live to a really exceptional old age, I will be long gone as you read this. Don't feel sorry for me. I have led a good and full life. I've loved a good man and been well loved in return. You would have liked Ben. He was the very first person I met in 1920. To take one breath in 2007 and the next in 1920 is a strange way to start a new life, but a new life is exactly what I've always wanted.'_

Sally folded up the letter again and decided to go and visit Kathy's grave. She went and brought flowers. Then she tracked down the grave and visited it. It turned out Ben and Kathy had been buried together.

'1902.' Sally read the gravestone. Then she grinned. 'You told him you were 18, you lying cow.' Sally stood up.

'_My mum and dad are gone by your time so really there's only Laurence to tell.'_ Kathy had written. _'He works at a DVD store on Queen Street. I don't know what you're gonna say to him but, I know you'll think of something. Just tell him I love him.'_

XXX

Sally looked down. 'It's like at Kathy's,' she said. 'You had him on all the screens. That same guy. Talking about, I don't know, blinking or something.'

'Yeah,' Larry agreed. 'The bit about blinking's great. I was just checking to see if they were all the same.'

'What were the same?' Sally asked. 'What is this? Who is he?'

'An Easter egg.' Larry laughed.

Sally stared at him, not understanding. 'Excuse me?'

'Like a DVD extra, yeah?' Larry started explaining. 'You know how in DVDs they put extras, you know, documentaries and stuff? Well, sometimes they put on hidden ones and they call them Easter eggs. You have to go looking for them. Follow a bunch of clues on the menu screen.'

'_Complicated,'_ the guy on the screen said.

'Sorry,' Larry said and paused it. 'It's interesting, actually. He is on 17 different DVDs. There are 17 totally unrelated DVDs all with him on, always hidden away, always a secret. Not even the publishers know. I've talked to the manufacturers right? They don't even know. He's like…he's like a ghost DVD extra. Just shows up where he's not supposed to be. But only on those. Those 17.'

'Well, what does he do?' Sally asked.

'Just sits there,' Larry answered. 'Making random remarks. It's like we're hearing half of a conversation. Me and the other guys are always trying to work the other half out.'

'When you say you and the guys, you mean the internet right?' Sally asked.

'How'd you know?' Larry asked.

'Spooky, isn't it?' Sally responded.

What Sally didn't know was she was about to get a taste of "spooky" of her own, moreso that she'd already done.

XXX

Detective Inspector Billy Shipton led the girl down into where they kept the old dummy police box that they'd found at the house. Also down to the cars that people had vanished out of.

'All of them?' she asked.

'Over the last two years, yeah,' Billy agreed. 'They all still have personal items in them and a couple still had the motor running.'

'So over the last two years, the owners of all of these vehicles have driven up to Wester Drumlins house, parked outside and just disappeared?' she asked.

Billy nodded. Then the girl saw the box.

'What's that?' she asked.

'Ah.' Billy grinned. 'The pride of the Wester Drumlins collection. We found that there, too. Somebody's idea of a joke, I suppose.'

She went over to it. 'Well, what is it? What's a police box?'

'Well, it's a special kind of box for policemen,' Billy answered, coming over. 'They used to have them all over, but this isn't a real one. The phone is just a dummy and the windows are the wrong size. Can't even get in it.' He gave the handle a little shake. 'Ordinary Yale lock. But nothing fits. But that's not the big question. See, you're missing the big question.' He walked down and stood in front of her.

'Okay,' the girl said. 'What's the big question?'

'Will you have a drink with me?' he said.

'I'm sorry?' she asked with a laugh.

'Drink?' he said. 'You. Me.' He looked at his watch. 'Now?'

'Aren't you on duty, Detective Inspector Shipton?' she asked.

'Nope,' he answered. 'Knocked off before I left. Told them I had a family crisis.'

'Why?' she asked.

'Because life is short and you are hot.' He answered, 'Drink?'

'No.' She turned and started walking away.

'Ever?' he asked.

'Maybe,' she responded.

'Phone number?' He ran to catch up to her.

'Moving rather fast, DI Shipton,' she remarked.

'Billy,' he corrected. 'I'm off duty.'

'Aren't you just.' She stopped and turned around, pulling out a pad and pen and writing it down.

'Is that your phone number?' he asked.

'Just my phone number,' she answered. 'Not a promise, not a guarantee, not an IOU. Just a phone number.'

He read it. 'And that's Sally…'

'Sally Shipton—Sparrow!' She quickly corrected herself.

He grinned. She clearly had the hots for him. That was good.

'Ah!' He laughed.

'Okay, going now,' she said. 'Don't look at me.'

'I'll phone you,' he called.

'Don't look at me.' She was clearly embarrassed.

'Phone you tomorrow.'

'Don't look at me.'

'Might even phone you tonight.'

'Don't look at me.' She went out.

'Definitely gonna phone you, gorgeous girl!' he called.

'Definitely better!' she called back.

He grinned in victory. But the grin faded when he looked back at the police box. There were several weeping angels surrounding it, like the ones in cemeteries.

_Where did they come from?_ He wondered.

He slowly wandered over to them, looking them over. No one had come in besides him and Sally. One of the stone monuments had a stone hand wrapped around the handle of the police box. Billy walked over to another one and stared at its covered face. Then he blinked.

**London, England, 1969**

Billy's back slammed against a wall. He was in an alley. He sank to the ground as he wondered how he got here.

'Welcome.'

He looked to the direction of the voice. There was a man wearing a suit and a tan overcoat coming over, carrying a weird contraption, and a girl with dark hair and eyes walking with him.

'Where am I?' Billy asked.

'1969,' the guy answered. 'Not bad, as it goes. You've got the moon landing to look forward to.'

'Yeah, we've been lost of times,' the girl said. Then she looked at the man. 'How's the getting-the-TARDIS-back plan going?'

'Working on it,' the guy told her.

'How did I get here?' Billy asked.

'Same way we did,' the guy said. 'Touch of an angel.' He climbed through the railings and sat next to Billy as he spoke. 'Same one, probably, since you ended up in the same year.' He went on, 'No, no, no. Don't get up. Time travel without a capsule, nasty. Catch your breath, don't go swimming for half an hour.'

'I don't…' Billy shook his head. 'I can't…'

'Fascinating race, the weeping angels,' the man remarked. 'The only psychopaths in the universe to kill you nicely. No mess, no fuss. They just zap you into the past and let you live to death, the rest of your life used up and blown away in the blink of an eye. You die in the past and in the present they consume the energy of all the days you might have had. All your stolen moments. They're creatures of the abstract, they live off potential energy.'

Billy stared at him. 'What in God's name are you talking about?'

'Don't try to follow it.' the girl said, 'It took me almost ten years to figure out how. Basically, you'd been sent to the past and you're stuck here.'

'Tracked you down with this.' The man held up his contraption. 'This is my timey-whimey detector. Goes "bing" when there's stuff. Also, it can boil an egg at 30 paces. Whether you want it to or not actually, so I've learnt to stay away from hens. It's not pretty when they blow.'

'I don't understand,' Billy said. 'Where am I?'

'1969,' the girl said. 'Like we said, you've been shot into the past. Give yourself a minute to wrap your head around the idea.'

'Normally, I'd give you a lift home, but somebody nicked my motor,' the man said. 'So I need you to take a message to Sally Sparrow. And I'm sorry, Billy. I am very, very sorry. It's gonna take you a while.'

**London, England, 2007**

Sally knew she had to end this now. She pulled up Larry's number and called him.

'_Bantos,'_ Larry answered.

'They're mine,' Sally told him.

'_What?'_ he asked.

'The DVDs on the list,' Sally clarified. 'The 17 DVDs. What they've got in common is me. They're all the DVDs I own. The Easter egg was intended for me.'

'_You've only got 17 DVDs?'_ Larry asked in disbelief.

'Do you have a portable DVD player?' Sally asked.

'_Of course,'_ he said. _'Why?'_

'I want you to meet me,' she answered.

'_Where?'_ he asked.

'Wester Drumlins.'

XXX

Larry decided this place was creepy. Sally opened the door for him.

'I knew that you would live in Scooby Doo's house,' he said as he went past her.

'For God's sake,' she responded. 'I don't live here.'

He went up and set the whole thing up. 'Okay. This is the one with the clearest sound. Slightly better picture quality on this one, but I don't know…'

'Doesn't matter,' she told him.

'Okay.' He put it in and activated it.

The bloke came and sat down.

'There he is,' Larry told Sally.

She went around to the front of the screen as the bloke put on the glasses. Larry had seen this all before.

'The Doctor,' Sally said.

'Who's a doctor?' Larry asked.

'He's the Doctor.' Sally pointed.

'_Yup, that's me,'_ the bloke said.

'Okay, that was scary,' Sally said.

'No, it sounds like he's replying,' Larry told her. 'But he always says that.'

'_Yes, I do,'_ the Doctor agreed.

'And that,' Larry told her.

Sally knelt down.

'_Yup,'_ the Doctor agreed. _'And this.'_

'He can hear us,' Sally said. 'Oh, my God. You can really hear us.'

This was ridiculous. 'Of course he can't hear us.' Larry went over, 'Look.' He picked up the papers he'd brought. 'I've got a transcript, see? Everything he says. "Yup, that's me". "Yes, I do". "Yup, and this". Next it's—'

'_Are you gonna read out the whole thing?'_ the Doctor asked, looking irritated.

'Sorry,' Larry found himself replying.

'Who are you?' Sally asked the Doctor.

'_I'm a time traveller,'_ the Doctor answered. _'Or I was. I'm stuck in 1969.'_

A girl with dark hair and dark eyes stuck her head in front of the camera. _'And for those who know this guy, that's the funniest thing you could ever hope to hear.'_ She remarked in amusement.

'_Dani!'_ he griped.

'_Sorry.'_ Dani pulled her head out of the way.

'I've seen this bit before,' Sally told Larry.

'_Quite possibly,'_ The Doctor agreed.

Sally turned back to the screen. '1969? That's where you're talking from?'

'_Afraid so.'_

'But you're replying to me,' Sally insisted.

_Yes,_ Larry realised. _He is._

'You can't know exactly what I'm gonna say 40 years before I say it,' Sally told him.

'_38.'_ The Doctor corrected her.

'I'm getting this down,' Larry said. 'I'm writing in your bits.'

'How?' Sally asked the Doctor. 'How is this possible? Tell me.'

'Not so fast,' Larry insisted.

'_People don't understand time,'_ the Doctor told her. _'It's not what you think it is.'_

'Then what is it?' Sally asked.

'_Complicated,'_ the Doctor answered.

'Tell me,' Sally told him.

'_Very complicated,'_ the Doctor clarified.

'I'm clever and I'm listening,' Sally responded. 'And don't patronise me because people have died and I'm not happy. Tell me.'

The Doctor seemed to gather his thoughts. _'People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect. But actually, from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint, it's more like a big ball of wibbly-wobbly, timey-whimey stuff.'_

'Yeah,' Sally said. 'I've seen this bit before. You said that sentence got away from you.'

'_It got away from me, yeah,'_ the Doctor agreed.

'Next thing you're gonna say is, "well, I can hear you",' she said.

'_Well, I can hear you,'_ he said.

'This is impossible,' Sally stated.

'No,' Larry said. 'It's brilliant!'

'_Well, not hear you exactly,' _the Doctor said. _'But I know everything you're gonna say.'_

'Always gives me the shivers, that bit,' Larry told her.

'How can you know what I'm gonna say?' Sally asked.

'_Look to your left.'_ The Doctor nodded his head.

'What's he mean by "look to your left"?' Larry asked. 'I've written tons about that in the forums. I think it's a political statement.'

'He means you,' Sally told him. 'What are you doing?' She came over to have a look.

'I'm writing in your bits,' Larry answered. 'That way, I've got a complete transcript of the whole conversation. Wait until this hits the Net. This will explode the egg forums.'

'_I've got a copy of the finished transcript,'_ the Doctor said as Sally went around to the front of the screen. _'It's on my autocue.'_

'How can you have a copy of the finished transcript?' Sally asked. 'It's still being written.'

'_I told you,' _he responded. _'I'm a time traveller. I got it in the future.'_

'Okay, let me get my head around this,' Sally said. 'You're reading aloud from a transcript of a conversation you're still having.'

'_Wibbly-wobbly, time-whimey…'_ He waved his hand.

'Actually, never mind that.' Sally sighed. Then she turned to Larry. 'You can do shorthand?'

'So?' Larry asked.

'_What matters is we can communicate,'_ the Doctor said. _'We have got big problems now. They have taken the blue box, haven't they? The angels have the phone box.'_

'"The angels have the phone box".' Larry chuckled. 'That's my favourite. I've got that on a t-shirt.'

'What do you mean, angels?' Sally asked. 'You mean those statue things?'

'_Creatures from another world,'_ the Doctor agreed.

'But they're just statues,' Sally objected.

'_Only when you see them,'_ the Doctor told her.

'What does that mean?' Sally asked.

'_The Lonely Assassins, they used to be called,'_ the Doctor explained. _'No one quite knows where they came from, but they're as old as the universe.' _He paused. _'Or very nearly. And they have survived this long because they have the most perfect defence system ever evolved. They are quantum locked. They don't exist when they're being observed. The moment they are seen by any other living creature, they freeze into rock. No choice. It's a fact of their biology. In the sight of any living thing, they literally turn to stone. And you can't kill a stone. Course, a stone can't kill you either, but then you turn your head away. Then you blink. And, oh, yes, it can.'_

Sally was looking past Larry.

'Don't take your eyes off that,' Sally told Larry.

'_That's why they cover their eyes,' _the Doctor said. _'They're not weeping. They can't risk looking at each other. Their greatest asset is their greatest curse. They can never be seen. Loneliest creatures in the universe. Well, I'm sorry. I am very, very sorry. It's up to you now.'_

'What am I supposed to do?' Sally asked.

Larry quickly scribbled that down.

'_The blue box,' _the Doctor answered. _'It's my time machine. There is a world of time energy in there they could feast on forever, but the damage they could do could switch off the sun. You have got to send it back to me.'_

Larry stopped writing.

'How?' Sally asked. 'How?'

'_Uh.' _He sat back. _'That's it, I'm afraid. There's no more from you on the transcript. That's the last I've got.' _He pulled the glasses off. _'I don't know what stopped you talking, but I can guess. They're coming. The angels are coming for you. But listen, your life could depend on this. Don't blink. Don't even blink. Blink and you're dead. They are fast. Faster than you can believe. Don't turn your back, don't look away and don't blink. Good luck.'_

It stopped.

'No, don't.' Sally moved forward. 'You can't.'

'I'll rewind him,' Larry said.

'What good will that do?' Sally demanded.

He realised that this was not just an Easter egg. It was something that was true and something that this Doctor had tried to stop. Now he wanted Sally to do it. It wasn't just another DVD.

'You're not looking at the statue,' Sally said.

'Neither are you,' Larry said.

They both looked. It'd moved.

XXX

They stared around the TARDIS and looked around in wonder. Suddenly something activated and they looked. A hologram of the Doctor stood on a platform.

'_This is security protocol 712,'_ he said. _'This time capsule has detected the presence of an authorised control disk, valid one journey.' _Larry pulled the disk out of his pocket. It was glowing brightly. _'Please insert the disk and prepare for departure.' _The hologram vanished.

Sally went around to the console.

'Looks like a DVD player,' she said. 'There's a slot.'

Suddenly the ship started shaking from side to side. Larry stumbled over to where Sally was as she fell.

'They're trying to get in!' Larry yelled.

'Well, hurry up then!' Sally yelled back.

Larry pushed the DVD into the slot.

**London, England, 1969**

The Doctor and Dani jumped up as the sound of the TARDIS filled the flat. The Doctor ran over and patted the side of the box.

'I really love humans,' he said.

'I know.' Dani tapped her chin with the small wad of monetary notes. 'You know. The landlord will be around at any moment to collect the rent.'

The Doctor and Dani looked at each other. Then they grinned and ran into the ship. They both stopped at the console and the Doctor winked at Dani. He threw the lever and launched them into the vortex, away from 1969.

**London, England, 2007**

Sally and Larry looked around at the circle of weeping angels. All were stuck in stone form.

'Look at them!' Sally yelled. 'Quick! Look at them!'

'I don't think we need to,' Larry said, standing up. 'He tricked them. The Doctor tricked them. They're looking at each other. They're never gonna move again.'

They both ducked under the arms of the weeping angels and made their way out of Wester Drumlins.

**One year later**

Dani watched the girl hand the Doctor some sort of file.

'Right.' He grinned. 'Thanks.'

And they moved off.

'What was that all about?' Dani asked.

'Best not to ask,' the Doctor answered.

'Wibbly-wobbly?' she asked.

'Timey-whimey.' He agreed.

* * *

><p>Rose looked at the date and time she'd been handed. Then up at Carly.<p>

'This is when the Rift will open?' she asked.

'And the hours,' Carly agreed. 'Before Jack uses his life force to close it. I'll meet you there when you come out.'

'It's now,' Rose said.

Carly held out her hand. 'So what are we waiting for?'

Rose took her hand and suddenly they were in Cardiff on the Rift, outside the memorial centre.

'Stand on the Rift and will yourself through,' Dani told her. 'Only the Rift in your dimension will be open. You'll fall right through. I'll meet you there.'

Rose went over and stood on the Rift. She willed herself to be back. She wanted to be back with every atom of her existence. There was not-quite-blinding golden flash.


	9. Utopia

**What would happen if it turned out Rose's presence in the parallel world caused a misbalance?**

**(No Martha or Jones family in this one)**

Chapter 9: Utopia

**Cardiff, Wales, 2007**

Rose was suddenly on the ground and she leaned up. No one noticed her, what with the giant creature towering over Cardiff and all. Carly was suddenly there.

'Abaddon,' she said. 'Captain Jack Harkness is using his never-ending life force to kill it. Then the Rift will close.'

Suddenly Abaddon exploded.

'The Doctor will show up tomorrow morning,' Carly told Rose, pulling her up. 'But then he'll be off again. When he returns to Earth after that, his TARDIS would have been stolen. We've got to do something about this guy before he becomes a real problem and before the lull ends.'

'Who is he?' Rose asked.

'I'll explain it on the way to London,' Carly told her, leading her over to the black Jeep Wrangler that was parked there.

XXX

'What are we doing in Cardiff?' Dani asked, coming around the console and over to the Doctor. 'Refuelling?'

The Doctor looked at her. 'You know about the Rift then?'

'Jack told me,' Dani told him.

'Jack who?' the Doctor asked.

'Captain Jack Harkness,' Dani said. 'After that thing with New Year's Day, I had more questions than answers. I came to Cardiff a week or so later only because I heard something about Weevils and I came to check it out. Met Jack fighting some of them. He noticed I wasn't human, I noticed he had a never-ending life force, we started talking.'

'You're beginning to sound like me.' The Doctor chuckled.

'Yeah, that happens.' Dani shrugged. 'Anyway, I found out he was a former companion and he found out the same of me. He told me about her, so I got a bit of a better idea. You know. I've told you. He wants to know why he can't die anymore.'

'Yeah, I'll tell him one day.' the Doctor said. 'Let's see. Should be only 20 seconds. The Rift's been active.'

Dani nodded. Then she looked towards the door. But instead of peeking out, she sat back on the captain's chair and watched the Doctor to see what his reaction would be.

'So what happened last time?' she asked. 'There was an Earthquake here a few years ago. Never asked Jack about it.'

'Bit of trouble with the Slitheen,' the Doctor answered. 'That was a long time ago. Lifetimes. I was a different man back then.'

'Last regeneration then?' Dani asked.

'Yeah.' The Doctor look at the monitor. He looked worried, then he took off. He grinned.

'You shouldn't look happy about that,' Dani told him. 'It's not very nice.'

Sparks shot out of the console and the ship rocked. The Doctor fell back and Dani had to grab onto the chair. The Doctor scrambled back up to the monitor.

'He's clamped onto the side.' She came up and looked. 'Where are you two fried chickens taking me now anyway?'

Dani ignored the flying sparks and the Doctor cringed.

'Fried chickens?' the Doctor demanded.

'Just answer the question,' Dani told him.

'We're accelerating into the future,' he told her. 'The year one billion. Five billion. Five trillion. Fifty trillion. What? The year 100 trillion? That's impossible.'

'We've also got something impossible clamped to the outside of the ship!' Dani exclaimed. 'Why's this impossible?'

'We're going to the end of the universe,' the Doctor answered. They landed with a thump. 'Well, we've landed.'

'It is your own fault,' Dani said. 'You didn't have to abandon him. Even if I know why you did it. You could've regenerated on the Gamestation, you know. Let everything play out there and then work Jack into the TARDIS so she didn't launch off like this.'

The Doctor gave her a look.

'I'm just saying.' She shrugged. 'It really hurt him when you left him like that.'

The Doctor felt a pang of guilt. He'd grown to like Jack when he'd been travelling with him. But Jack was now a temporal anomaly. His instincts ordered him to run away and he survived so far by following his instincts.

'Not even the Time Lords came this far,' the Doctor told her, not wanting to linger on the topic. 'We should leave. We should go. We should really, really go.'

'But we won't,' Dani said.

He looked at her and grinned. She grinned right back. They ran out the door, the Doctor pulling on his coat. Outside, they stopped. Then Dani turned. She saw Jack and walked over to him. She bent over and looked down at him, waiting. The Doctor wandered over to him.

'Hello again,' he said. 'Oh, I'm sorry.'

'You should be,' Dani said as bent down lower with a cheeky grin on her face. Obviously trying to scare him or duck away when he woke up and tried to kiss her or something. She'd met Jack. She knew.

'Must've been clinging to the outside of the TARDIS,' the Doctor remarked.

'I said so,' Dani told him.

'All the way through the vortex,' the Doctor remarked. 'Well, that's very him.'

'Yeah, it is,' Dani agreed. 'Wait, here we go.'

Jack came back to life with a snap, gasping and bolting up, grabbing onto Dani. She pulled back fast enough so she didn't get her nose banged and he could still catch her arms. He panted for breath.

'You've got to stop dying all the time, Jack,' Dani reprimanded him.

'Hello to you too, Ditty-Dani,' he said, with one of his grins.

Flirting again.

'Oh, don't start!' the Doctor complained.

'I was only saying hello,' Jack said.

'And, for you, that's starting.' Dani chuckled, yanking him to his feet and stepping back.

He was perfectly steady.

'Doctor,' he said.

'Captain,' the Doctor responded.

'Good to see you,' Jack told him.

'And you.' The Doctor nodded. 'Same as ever. Although, have you had work done?'

'You can talk!' Jack scoffed.

It took the Doctor a moment to remember he'd been in a different body the last time he saw Jack.

'Oh, yes, the face.' He remembered. 'Regeneration. Didn't Dani tell you about it?'

'Never came up,' Jack said.

'It's not something that usually comes up,' Dani said. 'How do I work that into a conversation. "Oh, by the way, he'll probably look a bit different. He changes his entire physical appearance everytime he starts to die"?'

Jack nodded to her, accepting the point. Then he turned back to the Doctor.

'How did you know it was me?' the Doctor asked.

'The police box kinda gives it away,' Jack told him. 'I've been following you for a long time. You abandoned me.'

'Did I?' the Doctor asked, seeming uncaring. 'Busy life. Moving on.'

'Just gotta ask,' Jack said. 'The Battle of Canary Wharf. I saw the list of the dead. It said Rose Tyler.'

Rose had been listed as dead. Unsurprising. She'd vanished from this dimension. And Jack was worried about it. Well, he had always loved Rose like a sister.

'Oh, no, sorry.' The Doctor assured him. 'She's alive.'

'You're kidding!' Jack's face lit up.

The Doctor could feel his relief from the two meters they stood apart. 'Parallel world. Safe and sound. And Mickey. And her mother.'

'Oh, yes!' Jack exclaimed.

The two guys hugged in relief. One because the facts he was told were fake and the other because the facts that could have been weren't.

XXX

Dani and Jack walked behind the Doctor. Jack was telling them what happened. '…so there I was stranded in the year 200,100, ankle deep in Dalek dust, and he goes off without me.'

'To be fair, he was regenerating,' Dani said. 'That's always a bit kablooey. Always a temporary loss of what little lucidity he has and sometimes there are long periods of unconsciousness.' She looked around. 'This doesn't look like the best place for that. So what happened then?'

'Well, I had this.' Jack showed her his vortex manipulator. 'My vortex manipulator.'

'Oh, excuse me!' the Doctor exclaimed. 'That is not time travel. It's like I got a sports car and you've got a space hopper.'

'All right, so I bounced,' Jack said. 'I thought "21st century, the best place to find the Doctor". Except I got it a little wrong and landed in 1869. This thing burnt out so it was useless.'

Dani had heard of all this, of course. Jack was just telling her this to grind on the Doctor's conscience. But that was what companions were for. To keep the Doctor company and let him know when he was being a complete idiot.

'Told you,' the Doctor said.

It wasn't working.

'I had to live through the entire 20th century, waiting for a version of you that would coincide with me,' Jack told him. 'So I went to the Time Rift, based myself there, cause I knew you'd come back to refuel, until finally I get a signal on this detecting you and here we are.'

They were silent for a minute.

'Hey, Jack, we picked up Rift activity when we were in Cardiff,' Dani said. 'What was that all about?'

'I got a group of four humans,' Jack answered. 'This guy wanted to open the Rift and you know the problem with humans and mind manipulation. He did that to make them open the Rift and out comes Abaddon.'

The Doctor turned around and started walking backwards as he listened. He was interested now.

'It starts feeding on human life-force,' Jack went on. 'So I figure if it does that, then I'm an all-you-can eat buffet. So I run into the shadow and it starts draining me. Hurt like hell but it worked. It exploded and closed the Rift and that was the activity you picked up.'

'How long was the Rift open for?' the Doctor asked.

'Oh.' Jack looked thoughtful. 'Half an hour, give or take.'

'Hmm.' Dani looked thoughtful too.

'What?' the Doctor asked, dropping into step beside Dani and Jack.

'It's nothing. I just thought…' Dani said. Then she looked at Jack. 'Did anything come through the Rift in that time besides Abaddon?'

'There was one thing, right before I went and killed Abaddon,' Jack answered. 'But Tosh—she's my computer whiz—said it was just pure energy and it dispersed as it came out. We scanned the planet. Nothing left of it.'

'That's odd,' the Doctor murmured. 'Energy would not just come through the Rift and then disappear. It must have taken another form to hide its presence from your technology.'

'Unless,' Dani murmured thoughtfully. 'Carly would want to…but could she?'

'Carly?' Jack asked.

'She's a bit of a sentimentalist,' Dani said. 'What I'm thinking is something that she'd want to do, if only for the romantic thrill. The question is, did she do it?'

**English-Welsh boarder, 2007**

'…and they've been at odds ever since,' Carly said. 'He did die, mind you. 1999, New Year's Night. Turn of the Millennium. Ran out of bodies, tried to steal the Doctor's. The Eye of Harmony ended up swallowing him. Dani was 13-years-old and saw the whole thing.'

'And he was brought back for the Time War?' Rose asked.

'Yeah,' Carly agreed. 'Ran away to the end of the universe. Trapped his Time Lord consciousness in a Gallifreyan Fob Watch and became a certain Professor Yana. When the Doctor, Dani and Jack meet him, they won't know he's a Time Lord.'

Carly handed the border guard her British licence and he checked it over.

'When will they figure it out?' Rose asked.

'You're good to go, luv.' The border guard handed her back the licence and opened the gate.

She drove on.

'Oh, when Dani sees the Fob Watch,' Carly answered. 'The Doctor had to use one, so she knows what they look like. Well, didn't "have to". Long story. The thing is she won't be able to show it to the Doctor because Yana will have it attached to his vest and he's very attached to it. So Dani'll have to just tell Mr. So-impressive.'

'But he thinks he's the Last of the Time Lords,' Rose said. 'Will he believe her when she tells him about the watch?'

'Anyone else and it's doubtful,' Carly answered. 'But Dani's the longest-running companion he's ever had. And she's very on-off-on-off as a companion. Understands and accepts the "companions come and go" thing better than most. Because she was raised in the TARDIS, living that life, she's learned not to jump at shadows. The Doctor knows that. So if Dani says Yana has a Gallifreyan Fob Watch, then the Doctor will believe that Yana has a Gallifreyan Fob Watch.'

'And then Yana opens the watch and becomes The Master,' Rose whispered.

'That's right,' Carly said. 'Then he steals the TARDIS and begins working on a plan. What we're going to do is get in the TARDIS before that plan can be properly launched and before this lull ends.'

'And when the Doctor gets there?' Rose asked.

'Dani'll have figured it out,' Carly told her. 'She'll tell me off for it, while I'm trying to fix the damage done to the TARDIS, and the Doctor will figure it out from there. The lull will be over by the time they find us.'

Rose frowned.

**Malcassairo, 100 trillion**

Dani tipped her head back and grinned. 'Someone's excited.' She cocked her head, 'This guy seems to need a scientist for something.'

'Really?' The Doctor asked.

Dani nodded. 'He's coming down.'

XXX

'And all this feeds into the rocket?' the Doctor asked as Dani and Jack looked around, Chantho showing them what was what.

'Yes,' Yana agreed. 'Except without a stable Footprint, we'll never achieve velocity. If only we could harmonise the five impact patterns and unify them, well, we might yet make it. What do you think, Doctor? Any ideas?'

'Well, basically, sort of, not a clue.' He pointed to his two companions sternly. 'And stop laughing at me.'

'Nothing?' Yana asked.

'I'm not from around these parts,' the Doctor told him. 'I've never seen a system like this. Sorry.'

'No, no, I'm sorry,' Yana said. 'It's my fault. There's been so little help…'

'That is slightly morbid.' Dani laughed.

They all came over to see Dani holding up a jar with a hand in it. It had come out of Jack's bag.

'But…that's my hand,' the Doctor said.

'I said I had a Doctor detector,' Jack responded.

'I thought you kept this thing in your office,' Dani said, setting the jar down. 'But you're carrying it in your bag now?'

'What species are you?' Yana asked.

'Time Lord,' the Doctor answered. 'Last of. Heard of them? Legend or anything? Not even a myth? Blimey, end of the universe is a bit humbling.'

'Chan, it is said that I am the last of my species too, tho,' Chantho said.

'Well, that makes three last of the species in this room,' Dani told her. 'Me, him, you.'

'Sorry, what was your name?' the Doctor asked.

'My assistant and good friend, Chantho,' Yana told him. 'A survivor of the Malmooth. This was their planet, Malcassairo, before we took refuge.'

'The city outside,' the Doctor said. 'That was yours?'

Chantho nodded. 'Chan, the conglomeration died, tho.'

'Conglomeration!' he said. 'That's what I said.'

'You're supposed to say sorry,' Jack told him.

'Oh, yes.' He remembered. 'Sorry.'

'Chan, most grateful, tho,' Chantho said.

Dani grinned. 'You'll also have to forgive his rudeness. When he's working through a problem, I'm afraid, he tends to forget his manners.'

'So you're going to help us?' Yana asked.

'Sure,' Dani said. 'People need saving. And that's the business we're in.'

'So what about those things outside?' Jack asked. 'The Beastie Boys. What are they?'

'We call them the Futurekind, which is a myth in itself,' Yana answered. 'But it's feared they are what we will become. Unless we reach Utopia.'

'Utopia?' Dani asked. 'That's the perfect paradise, ain't it? I thought that was just a story.'

'No,' Yana said. He led them over to a computer. 'The call came from across the stars. Over and over again. "Come to Utopia". Originating from that point.'

'Where is that?' the Doctor asked.

'Oh, it's far beyond the Condensate Wilderness,' Yana answered. 'Out towards the Wildlands and the Dark Matter Reefs. Calling us in, the last of the humans scattered across the night.'

'What do you think is out there?' the Doctor asked.

'We can't know.' Yana said, 'A colony, a city, some sort of haven. The Science Foundation created the Utopia Project thousands of years ago to preserve mankind, to find a way of surviving beyond the collapse of reality itself. Now perhaps they found it. Perhaps not. But it's worth a look, don't you think?'

'Oh, yes,' the Doctor said. 'And the signal keeps modulating so it's not on automatic.'

The Doctor started prattling, not noticing when Yana jammed his eyes shut against something going on in his head.

**London, England, 2007**

Carly and Rose stood with a group of tourists, who were snapping pictures of Harold Saxon leaving his house with his wife.

'He's not doing anything,' Carly murmured. 'Must be waiting.'

'For what?' Rose asked.

'For the Doctor or until he gets elected,' Carly whispered. 'But, I'll tell you what. There's a teleport in there.'

'To what?' Rose asked.

'The Valiant.' Carly looked up. 'He's got a ship up in the clouds. Where no one can get him. Bunch of army humans on board. And he's got the TARDIS. We have to get up there.'

As she said the last sentence, Carly checked her watch.

**Malcassairo, 100 trillion**

The two humans, the Time Lord, the former fugitive and the Malmooth ran around the room, preparing everything for the departure of the humans. The Doctor, Dani and Jack tossed things around to each other to organise them. Dani paused momentarily and cocked her head before she returned to work. The Doctor examined a wire.

'Is that…?' he began.

'Yeah, gluten extract,' Yana said. 'It binds the neutralino map together.'

'But that's food,' the Doctor pointed out. 'You've built this system out of food and string and staples? Professor Yana, you're a genius.'

'Says the man who made it work,' Yana responded.

'Oh, it's easy coming in at the end.' The Doctor easily brushed it off. 'But you're stellar. This is magnificent. And I don't often say that cause…well, cause of me.'

'Well, even my title is an affectation,' Yana said. 'There hasn't been such thing as a university for over 1000 years. I've spent my life going from one refugee ship to another.'

'If you'd been born in a different time, you'd be revered,' the Doctor told him. 'I mean it. Throughout the galaxies.'

'Oh, those damn galaxies.' Yana cursed them. 'They had to go and collapse. Some admiration would have been nice. Yes, just a little. Just once.'

'Well, you've got it now,' the Doctor said.

XXX

Dani paused. 'Jack. Hold down the fort. Something's wrong.'

'Those hunter-and-prey instincts going off again?' Jack asked.

'Yeah.' Dani ran out. 'I've got my phone if the Doctor needs me.'

She ran through the corridors. The humans had thinned out by now so she moved along easier. She slowed as she came close. Then all the lights went out and haywire. The Futurekind around the corner had stuffed up the power systems. Dani stepped out, dropped into a crouch and snarled savagely at the Futurekind. She—it was a female—turned around and jumped at her. Dani ducked to the side.

XXX

'I might have just found you a way out,' the Doctor told Professor Yana.

'Chan, look at this, tho!' Chantho called.

They wheeled around and ran over to look. Dani was taking on a Futurekind. There was a broken generator beside them.

'So that's where she went,' the Doctor remarked. 'She must have sensed it.'

'I've never seen a human take on a member of the Futurekind like that,' Yana murmured.

'Oh, she's not a human,' the Doctor told him.

'What species is she then?' Yana asked.

'Well, the fist of her kind to reach a level of civility, as it were,' the Doctor answered. 'They were destroyed before they even had the chance to be a civilisation. The physical power of that species was unrivalled. They were the fastest, the strongest and the most skilled fighters in the universe. Their biology prepared them for every eventuality in a fight, from the opponent to the atmosphere.'

At that point the Futurekind bit into her arm and Dani drove the heel of her hand into its head. It dropped dead at her feet. Dani rubbed her arm and went to look at the generator.

'Dani.' The Doctor used the intercom. 'How's it look?'

She turned around and looked up at the camera. _'It's busted._ _Is there a backup?'_

'Yes,' Yana answered. 'But it's in a radiation-flooded room.'

'Dani, the TARDIS has been teleported in,' the Doctor told her. 'Go and get it.'

She pulled out a key and it glowed. It lifted up and pointed and Dani followed it.

'Won't that wound need tending?' Yana asked.

'Binding, maybe,' the Doctor responded. 'Then all she does is eat and it'll be healed within the hour.'

Jack looked at the Doctor. 'She's one of _them_?' he asked, 'Whoa! You'd never know. I take it that's your doing?'

'Who else?' the Doctor asked.

'Chan, what are you talking about, tho?' Chantho asked.

'Dani's species were called Presans,' Jack explained. 'They did have a few reputations. Like: The Primitive Fugitives and The Warriors of the Universe. You know I always wondered why they never had a home planet. Guess I know now.'

**London, England, 2007**

'Okay?' Rose looked around. 'Where is it?'

'Pull your key out,' Carly told her. 'Dani told me about this. If you hold it up, it should lead us right to where the TARDIS is.'

Rose pulled the key from around her neck and let it dangle from her clasped hand. The silver key glowed and lifted. Rose saw it point in the TARDIS's direction and tug her towards it. Pulling her back. Pulling her back home.

**Malcassairo, 100 trillion**

'Jack.' Dani groaned. 'Don't—'

She never got the sentence out. He slammed the cables together and was electrocuted. Chantho quickly moved forward and pulled the sparking cables out of the way. The Doctor hung back as Yana came to look. Dani knelt by Jack's side.

'Tried to tell him,' she muttered.

'The chamber's flooded with radiation, yes?' the Doctor asked.

'Without the couplings, the engines will never start,' Yana agreed. 'It was all for nothing.'

'Oh, I don't know,' the Doctor remarked. 'Dani, come over here.'

Dani stood up and walked over to the Doctor. She stood beside him and glanced at her watch. She knew what he was going to do.

'Strikes me, Professor,' the Doctor remarked. 'You've got a room which no man can enter without dying. Is that correct?'

'Yes,' Yana agreed.

'Well.' The Doctor paused. As if on cue, Jack gasped in a deep breath as he came back to life. The Doctor pulled off his glasses. 'I think I've got just the man.'

XXX

The Doctor and Jack ran down the corridor.

'Lieutenant, get on board the rocket,' the Doctor ordered as soon as they got to the room. 'I promise you're going to fly.'

'The chamber's flooded,' the Lieutenant insisted.

'Trust me, we've found a way of tripping the system,' the Doctor told him. 'Run!'

The Doctor started on the controls and Jack started stripping.

'What are you taking your clothes off for?' the Doctor asked.

'I'm going in,' Jack said.

'By the looks of it, I'd say the stet radiation doesn't affect clothing, only flesh,' the Doctor responded.

'Well, I look good, though,' Jack said. He ran over to the door. 'How long have you known?'

'Ever since I ran away from you,' the Doctor answered. 'Good luck.'

Jack opened the door for him, went in and closed the door behind him. He flinched back in pain for a moment. The Doctor went to the window and watched Jack make his way over to the couplings. He started working on them.

'_How's it going boys?'_ Dani's voice came through the intercom.

'He's inside,' the Doctor answered.

'_And still alive?'_ Dani sounded like she already knew the answer.

'Oh, yes,' the Doctor said.

Jack went around to the other side of the couplings.

'When did you realise?' the Doctor asked.

'Earth, 1892,' Jack answered. 'Got in a fight on Ellis Island, a man shot me through the heart at point blanc range. Then I woke up. Thought it was kind of strange. But then it never stopped. Fell off a cliff, trampled by horses, World War I, World War II, poison, starvation, a stray javelin.'

'Ooh!' the Doctor sympathised.

'In the end, I got the message,' Jack told him. 'I'm the man who can never die. And all that time you knew.'

'That's why I left you behind,' the Doctor told him. 'It's not easy, even just…just looking at you, Jack, cause you're wrong.'

'Thanks,' Jack said coldly.

'You are,' the Doctor said. 'I can't help it. I'm a Time Lord. It's instinct. It's in my guts. You're a fixed point in time and space. You're a fact. That's never meant to happen. Even the TARDIS reacted against you, tried to shake you off. Flew all the way to the end of the universe just to get rid of you.'

'So what you're saying is you're prejudiced?' Jack asked, hiding the hurt with a poke at the Doctor.

The Doctor considered that. 'I never thought of it like that.'

'Shame on you.' Jack chuckled.

'Yeah.' The Doctor rubbed his eye. He knew their friendship had been mended now. And that was enough to override the "wrong" feelings.

'_Good lads,'_ Dani chirped over the intercom. _'Are you gonna complete the makeup by kissing now?'_

Both the Doctor and Jack burst out laughing. But that eventually tapered off.

'Last thing I remember, back when I was mortal, I was facing three Daleks,' Jack said. 'Death by extermination. Then I came back to life. What happened?'

The Doctor felt his hearts ache. But Jack did have the right to know this. He'd put his feelings aside to tell him.

'Rose.'

Jack froze. 'I thought you'd sent her back home.'

'She came back,' the Doctor answered. 'Opened the Heart of the TARDIS and absorbed the time vortex itself.'

He knew, back in the lab, Dani had frozen. She knew how dangerous that thing was.

'What does that mean exactly?' Jack, apparently, didn't.

'No one's ever meant to have that power,' the Doctor answered. 'If a Time Lord did that, he'd become a god, a vengeful god. But she was human. Everything she did was so human. She brought you back to life.'

Jack looked at him.

'But she couldn't control it,' the Doctor said. 'She brought you back forever. That's something, I suppose. The final act of the Time War was life.'

'Do you think she could change me back?' Jack asked.

'I took the power out of her,' the Doctor told him. 'She's gone, Jack.' He looked at him again. 'She's not just living on a parallel world. She's trapped there. The walls have closed.'

Jack shook his head. 'I'm sorry.'

'Yeah.' The Doctor looked away.

'I went back to her estate in the 90s,' Jack told him. 'Just once or twice. Watched her growing up. Never said hello, timelines and all that.'

'Do you want to die?' the Doctor asked.

'This one's a little stuck,' Jack told him.

XXX

Dani considered what these two had said. They both clearly loved Rose. But Dani had known that for ages. It killed her that she had never been allowed to introduce herself to the blonde shopgirl. She would have loved to meet her.

'_Jack?'_ the Doctor pressed.

'_I thought I did,'_ Jack told him. _'I don't know. But this lot, you see them out here surviving and that's fantastic.'_ The last one shifted.

'_You might be out there somewhere,'_ the Doctor told him.

Dani knew for a fact that he wasn't.

'_I could go meet myself,'_ Jack said.

'_Well,'_ the Doctor allowed, _'it's the only man you're ever gonna be happy with.'_

Jack laughed. _'This new regeneration. It's kinda cheeky.'_

The Doctor chuckled. Dani sighed and leaned back. Then she saw something. Yana was staring at the TARDIS, his expression a million miles away, and he held his fob watch. Dani looked up, into another reflective surface and she could see the watch clearly. She could see the symbols. And they looked…

She studied them harder. They were.

'Oh, dear God,' she murmured.

'Chan, what is it, tho?' Chantho asked.

'Hold down the fort,' Dani told her.

Then she ran out.

XXX

Jack was surprised when Dani spun around the corner to meet them.

'Dani?' the Doctor asked. 'What is it?'

'You're not going to believe this,' Dani said. 'Yana's fob watch is Gallifreyan.'

'What?' The Doctor was completely shocked. 'That's completely impossible!'

'Yeah,' Dani said. 'But I saw the reflection of it. It's exactly like the one you gave to Tim and he's staring at the TARDIS in a daze.'

'What's going on?' Jack asked.

'A Gallifreyan Fob Watch is a camouflage device of the Time Lords,' the Doctor told him. 'It places the identity of the Time Lord in the Watch while the Time Lord takes on a new identity, even a different species. It makes them completely invisible, even to them, until they open the Watch. Dani, can you tell me who it is?'

'Nuh uh,' Dani answered. 'I have to touch the Fob Watch before I can sense the Time Lord. It's clipped to his vest. If someone tried to nick it, he'd notice.'

'But it explains why he's so clever,' the Doctor remarked. 'The Time Lords prided themselves on their knowledge. To not have much knowledge would be a nightmare to them.'

Dani nodded. 'True. I can try and come in contact with it, cause he's got it out. I'd only need a second.' She paused. The Doctor and Dani both looked into the direction of the laboratory. Obviously they both felt something.

'Never mind,' she said.

'Dani, the TARDIS door's open,' the Doctor told her.

She bolted.

'Who is it?' Jack called to the Doctor as they ran after her.

'His name's the Master,' the Doctor told him. 'He's an old enemy of mine. One of the most dangerous criminals in the universe.'

'Of course,' Jack muttered at the typical nature of the situation.

XXX

The Doctor, Dani and Jack were thrown back as the TARDIS vanished.

'Jack!' the Doctor yelled. 'We're using your vortex manipulator.'

The three of them leapt to their feet.

'I've got a bad feeling about this,' Dani muttered. 'I've seen that face before.'

'That's never good,' the Doctor said.

**London, England, 2007**

Carly and Rose shut the door behind them. Rose gasped in shock at what she saw. The console was completely blocked off by something metal and twisted.

'A paradox machine,' Carly explained. 'Those Toclafane must be made from humans. That way they can kill the humans and not wipe out their own existences. If it's not perfectly intact like this, it doesn't work.'

'So what do we do?' Rose asked.

'I'm going to dismantle it,' Carly told her. 'You are going to bed.'

'Why am I going to bed?' Rose demanded. Suddenly hot, white pain rippled through her and she gasped, stumbling back.

'Because the lull just ended,' Carly answered.


	10. The Sound of Drums

**What would happen if it turned out Rose's presence in the parallel world caused a misbalance?**

**(No Martha or Jones family in this one)**

Chapter 10: The Sound of Drums

The Doctor, Dani and Jack all dropped into an alleyway and groaned, except Jack who was more accustomed to the pain.

'Time travel without a capsule,' the Doctor mused. 'That's a killer.' He cracked his neck. Dani yanked one of the "vote Saxon" posters from the wall behind her. She whacked it with the back of her fingers. 'I knew I'd seen that face somewhere before!'

The Doctor came over and took the poster from her. 'Saxon? A politician?'

'I think so, yeah,' Dani said. 'We'll know for sure if we find one of those billboards with his face pasted all over it.'

'Let's go,' the Doctor said, leading them out of the alley.

They were walking down the street when Jack made the remark, 'Still, at least we made it. Earth, 21st century by the looks of it. Talk about lucky.'

'That wasn't luck,' the Doctor said. 'That was me.'

They all sat down.

'The moral is, if you're gonna get stuck at the end of the universe, get stuck with an ex-Time Agent and his vortex manipulator,' Jack said.

'The Master's got the TARDIS,' Dani said. 'And there's a high chance, he's the next Prime Minister.' She looked at the Doctor. 'Is he even here?'

'No, he's here,' the Doctor said. 'Trust me.'

'He must have regenerated,' Dani said. 'His voice was different at the end.'

'So how are we gonna find him?' Jack asked. 'We have no idea what he looks like.'

'I'll know him,' the Doctor told them. 'Moment I see him. Time Lords always do.' He looked at Dani. 'You saw him?'

'Before he sent out some sort of pulse and blew me out of the TARDIS and into you two, yeah,' she answered. 'I didn't see much of him. I jumped on his back and only really saw his hair. It was short and brown. Not as short as yours was last life, but close. And he was really skinny too. Doesn't really narrow it down, though. If he's not Saxon, he could be anyone.'

'_Mr. Saxon is returning from the palace and is greeting the crowd inside Saxon headquarters,'_ the news reporter on the TV behind them said.

They turned to see if it was the Master.

'That's him,' the Doctor said. 'He's Prime Minister. Dani, you were right. The Master is Prime Minister of Great Britain. The Master and his _wife_?'

'See, now that's creepy,' Dani said.

The Master stepped forward and began a speech. _'This country has been sick. This country needs healing. This country needs medicine. In fact, I'd go so far as to say, that what this country really needs right now is a Doctor.'_

Dani cringed. 'And that's just nasty.'

XXX

Carly turned around from where she was pulling the first fraction of the paradox machine apart. Her jacket was thrown over one of the coral-like struts surrounding the outer console room. She knew what Saxon had just said.

'Great pun, mate,' she muttered. 'What next, you bleeding ponce?'

She checked on Rose as she continued work.

XXX

Dani led them into her flat.

'What have you got?' the Doctor asked. 'Computer? Laptop? Anything.' He looked at Jack. 'Who are you phoning? You're not telling anyone we're here.'

'Just some friends of mine,' Jack said. 'But they're not picking up.'

Dani pulled out her laptop and handed it to the Doctor.

'Sorry,' Dani said. 'In here, I've only got human stuff. All the alien stuff's at the Kaias HQ.'

'I can show you the Saxon websites.' Jack took the laptop. 'He's been around for ages.'

'Wait,' Dani said. 'I'm just gonna send out Kaias protocol 2.'

'What's that?' the Doctor asked as she sent it out.

'Bio-scan on the Prime Minister,' Dani answered. 'It's a Handiconean one. Can do it from a distance and gives us everything. Internal workings, race and genetic code. It's basically my way of telling them that Harold Saxon is the Master. I thought there was a possibility the Master may come back so I had his genetic code loaded into the Kaias databanks.'

The Doctor grinned. 'That's my girl.'

'Here we go,' Jack said.

They played a few videos that basically publicised that Harold Saxon should be voted for no matter what. He was great and awesome and whatever else humans thought meant positive.

'Former Minister of Defence,' Jack read. 'First came to prominence when he shot down the Racnoss on Christmas Eve.' He turned around. 'Nice work, by the way,' he told the Doctor.

'Oh, thanks,' the Doctor responded.

'But he goes back years,' Dani muttered, coming over. 'He's famous. Everyone knows his story. How did he do that? I mean, look. Cambridge University, Rugby blue, won the athletics, wrote a novel, went into business, got married and everything like that.' She cocked her head. 'Unless…' She turned to face the Doctor. 'Do you reckon he faked everything?'

'That's the only thing that makes sense,' the Doctor said.

XXX

Carly froze. A Toclafane was killing a human. And she'd interrupted the paradox machine, so some Toclafane were bound to vanish. Carly pulled herself out from under the console and replaced the hatch. Then she grabbed her jacket from the captain's chair as she ran past. It didn't take long for the Master to come, via teleport.

Carly knew the mind of a Time Lord was by far more difficult to manipulate than the mind of a human was. A human couldn't detect you. A Time Lord could. If you didn't do it fast enough. She waited until she heard the door open and then shot the assumption through his head. She held her breath and waited.

'Oh,' the Master muttered. 'Did I leave that? Well! Even I must slip at times.'

She kept her sigh of relief as quiet as was physically possible.

XXX

'But he's got the TARDIS.' Jack pointed out from where he was making the three of them tea. 'Maybe the Master went back in time and has been living here for decades.'

'No,' the Doctor said, still surfing the Saxon site.

'Why not?' Jack asked. 'Worked for me.'

He gave Dani and the Doctor their mugs of tea.

'When he was stealing the TARDIS the only thing I could do was fuse the coordinates,' the Doctor answered. 'I locked them permanently.'

'Until you can get to it,' Dani said.

'Yeah,' he said. 'He can only travel between the year 100 trillion and the last place the TARDIS landed. Which is right here, right now. So Dani's theory is far more likely.'

'Yeah,' Jack shook his head. 'But a little leeway?'

'Well, 18 months, tops,' the Doctor allowed. 'The most he could have been here is 18 months. So how's he managed all this?'

'18 months?' Dani asked.

'Yeah,' the Doctor agreed. 'Does that mean something to you?'

'18 months.' Dani nodded. 'I think I just figured out how he did it.'

'What do you mean?' Jack asked.

'The Master was always sort of hypnotic, but this is on a massive scale,' the Doctor said. 'You think you figured out how he did it?'

'Before I headed up the Kaias Foundation, I had no need for a mobile phone, so I didn't own one,' she explained. 'But about 16 months ago the Kaias came together properly. We needed to camouflage and mobile phones were part of that. That was the first time I picked up a mobile. And everytime I spoke on it, I heard something. A rhythm. And I wasn't the only one. Anyone in Kaias with acute hearing could hear it. We assumed it was something that was on the back of every mobile, undetectable to human senses and it just became a nuisance. But, now that I think about it, I realise that every single person who can hear it finds Saxon the same kind of nuisance.'

The Doctor considered this. 'What does it sound like?'

Dani leant on the bench she was next to and started repetitively knocking a rhythm of four out onto it. She stopped as a broadcast from Saxon came on.

XXX

Carly was dismantling the paradox machine again.

'That's gonna go over like a lead salami,' she remarked. 'Apart from the humans, that is. But it will help me for the next few hours.' She smirked up into the innards of the machine. 'Thanks, _Harold Saxon._'

XXX

'_Every man, woman and child, every teacher and chemist and lorry driver and farmer and oh, I don't know, every…reformed fugitive?'_

The Doctor and Jack twisted around and looked at Dani.

'Oh…damn,' Dani said.

The Doctor twisted the TV around and found a ticking bomb strapped to the back. They had seconds to get out.

'Out!' the Doctor yelled.

They all bolted out. The Doctor grabbed the laptop and his coat. They ran out of the flat building and into the street. The flat exploded, taking four other flats with it. Dani brushed her hair back.

'S-O-B,' she said. Dani's phone rang. 'Hello?' She paused. 'You killed five people, Master.'

The Doctor came over and she handed over the phone. 'I'm here.'

'_Doctor,'_ the Master said.

'Master,' the Doctor responded.

'_I like it when you use my name,'_ the Master told him.

'You chose it,' the Doctor said. 'Psychiatrist's field day.'

'_As you chose yours,' _the Master agreed. _'The man who makes people better. How sanctimonious is that?'_

'So, Prime Minister, then?' the Doctor asked. 'Subliminal messages?'

'_How'd you know?'_ the Master murmured.

'Dani,' the Doctor answered. 'You should know, Master. One of the Presan fugitives. Prepared for every eventuality. Even unnatural ones. She heard it, loud and clear. Who were those creatures? There's no such thing as the Toclafane. That's just a made-up name like the boogieman.'

'_Do you remember all those fairytales about the Toclafane when we were kids?'_ the Master asked. _'Back home? Where is it, Doctor?'_

'Gone,' the Doctor answered.

'_How can Gallifrey be gone?'_ the Master asked.

'It burnt,' the Doctor said.

'_And the Time Lords?'_ the Master asked.

'Dead,' the Doctor answered. 'And the Daleks. More or less. What happened to you?'

'_The Time Lords only resurrected me because they knew I'd be the perfect warrior for a Time War,'_ the Master answered. _'I was there when the Dalek Emperor took control of the Cruciform. I saw it. I ran. I ran so far. Made myself human so they would never find me, because…I was so scared.'_

'I know.' The Doctor remembered the fear.

'_All of them?'_ the Master asked. _'But not you. Which must mean…'_

'I was the only one who could end it,' the Doctor confirmed. 'And I tried. I did. I tried everything.'

'_What did it feel like, though?'_ the Master asked. _'Two almighty civilisations burning. Oh, tell me, how did that feel?'_

'Stop it,' the Doctor told him.

'_You must have been like God,' _the Master mused.

'I've been alone ever since,' the Doctor answered. 'But not anymore. Don't you see all we've got is each other?'

'_Are you asking me out on a date?'_ the Master asked.

He pretended he didn't say that. 'You could stop this right now, we could leave this planet. We can fight across the constellations if that's what you want. But not on Earth.'

'_Too late,'_ the Master told him.

'Why do you say that?' the Doctor asked.

'_The drumming,'_ the Master answered. _'Can't you hear it? I thought it would stop, but it never does. It never, ever stops. Inside my head. The drumming, Doctor, the constant drumming.'_

'I could help you,' he said. 'Please, let me help.'

'_It's everywhere,'_ the Master said. _'Listen, listen, listen. Here come the drums. Here come the drums.'_

'What have you done?' the Doctor asked. 'Tell me. What are those creatures? Tell me!'

'_Oh!'_ the Master exclaimed._ 'Look! You're on TV!'_

'Stop it,' the Doctor told him. 'Answer me.'

'_No, really,'_ the Master told him. _'You're on telly! You and your little band.'_

The Doctor looked. Nationwide terrorists. He hung up and bolted back to his companions.

'Get in the car!' he yelled. 'Get in the car!'

'Huh?' Dani asked. 'Why?'

'The Master's named us as terrorists!' the Doctor answered. 'Where can we go?'

'Kaias HQ,' Dani answered, climbing into her car behind the wheel.

The Doctor climbed in the passenger side and Jack in the back. Dani put her foot down and they shot forward.

XXX

Dani led the Doctor and Jack through the Kaias Foundation HQ. It was situated in an interesting place.

'Under the Atlantic Ocean?' the Doctor asked. 'Why have you planted a base under the Atlantic Ocean?'

'The UK and the USA have the highest percentage of alien activity in the world,' Dani answered. 'A base between the two made more sense than in one or the other. And, as for beneath the Atlantic…who's gonna suspect a base to be here? Humans don't have that technology.'

'Got a point, I suppose,' the Doctor allowed.

Dani led them into the conference room, where the four Faction Leaders were gathered.

'Conveniently, everyone knows everyone,' Dani said as she, the Doctor and Jack sat down at the table.

'Harold Saxon's the Master?' Maz asked, looking immensely confused. 'But, according to historical record, that guy was swallowed by the Eye of Harmony on the 31st of December, 1999 at 11:59pm. How is he still alive?'

'The Time Lords resurrected him for the Time War,' the Doctor answered. 'He ran away. Now he's back.'

'Don't know how they did it,' Dani griped, sitting at the head of the table with the Doctor. 'He'd used up all 13 lives. What'd they do? Renew the regenerative cycle?'

'Probably,' the Doctor said. 'We've just got to figure out what he's up to.'

'Jarvis?' Dani asked.

'Got access to the government,' Jarvis said. 'So we can track Saxon's movements.'

'Good,' Dani said.

'What do you usually do in here?' Jack asked.

'Oh, debrief,' Dani answered. 'Plan. Spy on people. Same thing you do in yours.'

'In that case.' Jack looked at the Doctor. 'So, Doctor, who is the Master?'

The Doctor looked up at Jack. Dani gave him a very light kick under the table. He'd have to tell him sometime.

'How come the ancient society of the Time Lords created a psychopath?' Jack asked.

'Tell him the other bit too,' Dani told him. 'What he was to you.'

'A friend at first,' the Doctor said.

'But all the legends of Gallifrey made it sound so perfect,' Jack said.

'Well, perfect to look at, maybe,' the Doctor agreed. 'And it was, it was beautiful. They used to call it the Shining World of the Seven Systems. And on the continent of Wild Endeavour, in the mountains of Solace and Solitude, there stood the Citadel of the Time Lords. The oldest and most mighty race in the universe, looking down on the galaxies below, sworn never to interfere. Only to watch. Children of Gallifrey, taken from their families at the age of eight to enter the Academy. And some say that's where it all began. When he was a child. That's when the Master saw eternity. As a novice, he was taken for initiation. He stood in front of the Untempered Schism, it's a gap in the fabric of reality through which could be seen the whole of the vortex. You stand there, eight-years-old, staring at the raw power of time and space. Just a child. Some would be inspired. Some would run away. And some would go mad.' He shook himself out of it. 'I don't know.'

'He ran away.' Dani told every one else at the table, pointing to the Doctor.

'I never stopped,' the Doctor agreed.

Jack's vortex manipulator beeped. Jack looked. 'Encrypted channel. With files attached.'

Dani got a slight smirk on her face.

'That's mean,' Lassa told her.

'I like seeing ego-centric people get in trouble,' Dani responded.

Jarvis gestured Jack to come over so they could access the hardware.

'Why's he getting in trouble?' the Doctor asked.

XXX

The Doctor soon found out. When he saw the Torchwood symbol. 'You work for Torchwood?' He demanded, feeling his temper flaring.

'I swear to you,' Jack said. 'It's different. It's changed. There's only half a dozen of us now.'

'Everything Torchwood did and you're part of it?' the Doctor barely let Jack finish.

'The old regime was destroyed at Canary Wharf,' Jack told him. 'I rebuilt it. I changed it. And when I did that, I did it for you. In your honour.'

The Doctor stared at him harshly.

'Dani,' Lassa begged.

Dani sighed and caught the Doctor's shoulder. 'Yeah, he did. His team doesn't even know your name, save one, and he's had it explained you're not an enemy. What happened at Canary Wharf could never happen again because they don't have an idiot in charge. Jack's probably the best human to have in charge of that lot. He's even made an easy alliance with this Foundation. I never trusted the old regime. I destroyed two of their branches prior to the Battle.'

The Doctor paused, considering that. He knew Dani was telling him the truth. He knew he should forgive Jack, but Rose's face as she looked over her father's shoulder before he teleported out flashed before the Doctor's eyes.

'Is that what happened?' Jack asked. 'Oh, you must have knocked the cliff under Torchwood 2 down then?'

'Hey, they attacked us.' Dani held up her hands.

'How'd you make Torchwood 4 disappear?' Jack asked.

'Disintegration gun,' Dani answered. 'They had no idea how to use it. Because of that aliens were losing half their bodies and dying slowly and very painfully. So I just showed them how to use it.'

The Doctor nodded to Jarvis. He hit the activation button. A woman was on the screen.

'_If I haven't returned to my desk by 2200 this file will be e-mailed to Torchwood,'_ she said. _'Which means if you're watching this then I'm…anyway, the Saxon files are attached, but take a look at the Archangel document. That's when it all started, when Harry Saxon became Minister in charge of launching the Archangel Network.'_

'What's the Archangel Network?' the Doctor asked.

'It's a mobile phone network,' Dani answered. 'Everyone on the planet's got it.'

'Yeah, it's gone worldwide,' Jack said. 'They've got 15 satellites in orbit. Even the other networks. They're all carried by Archangel.'

'Is that how the entire world got brainwashed?' Sark asked.

'Put your phones out,' the Doctor told them. 'Everyone.'

Soon six mobile phones were pushed to the Doctor. He pulled out his sonic screwdriver and soniced them all.

'Wait, wait, wait,' he said. 'Hold on.' He grabbed each phone and hit them on the table in turn. As he did, the beeping every sharp-eared alien had been hearing became audible to everyone. '"Vote Saxon. Believe in me". Whispering to the world. Any more than this rhythm and code and a strong-willed person would question it. Oh! Yes! That's how he hid himself from me!'

'How?' Jarvis asked. 'I mean, you should've sensed there was another Time Lord on Earth.'

'That's what you always told me.' Dani nodded.

'I should've known way back,' the Doctor said. 'But the signal cancelled him out.'

'Anyway you can stop him?' Jack asked.

'Not from down here,' the Doctor answered. 'But now we know for sure how he's doing it.'

'And we can fight back?' Lassa asked. 'Save all those lives?'

'Oh, yes!' the Doctor crowed.

XXX

'Three TARDIS keys.' The Doctor dropped the keys on the table. The ones he'd gotten from Dani and Jack. 'I can only use what I've got.'

'It's okay,' Lassa said. 'We've got force fields.'

'Good,' the Doctor said. 'Three pieces of the TARDIS. All with low-level perception properties because the TARDIS is designed to blend in. Well, sort of, but now, the Archangel Network's got a second low-level signal. Weld the key to the network, and Dani…' He stepped back. 'Look at me, you can see me, yes?'

'Yeah.' Dani nodded.

'What about now?' The Doctor hooked the key around his neck.

Dani's onyx eyes veered away from the Doctor. She blinked. Jack and some of her team around her chuckled.

'No,' the Doctor said. 'I'm here. Look at me.'

She tried to refocus, but it didn't work. 'Oh, I get it. I know you're there, but I don't wanna know. Tricks the perception, eh?'

'And back again.' The Doctor pulled it from around his neck.

Dani's team gave him a round of applause. He grinned and Dani put her hand over her face.

'Guys!' She groaned. 'Ego!'

'See?' the Doctor asked, giving the keys back. 'It just shifts your perception. A tiny little bit. Doesn't make us invisible. Just unnoticed. Oh, I know what it's like. It's like when you fancy someone and they don't even know you exist.'

Dani snorted in laughter. 'Don't make that comparison ever again. There might actually be someone in the room who does.'

'So you can get the TARDIS back right under the Master's nose?' Maz asked. 'That is brilliant.'

'Isn't it just?' The Doctor laughed.

XXX

They walked out of the front entrance and into the street.

'Don't run,' the Doctor told Dani and Jack. 'Don't shout, just keep your voice down. Draw attention to yourself and the spell is broken. Just keep to the shadows.'

'Like ghosts?' Jack asked.

'Yeah,' the Doctor said. They looped the keys around their necks. 'That's what we are. Ghosts.'

It worked like a charm. They walked, unnoticed through the streets of London. Ghosts of London.

XXX

They into the Master's ship, the Valiant, and got to the TARDIS. They were undetected. Almost. They got to the door and there was suddenly a transparent green bubble around them and the TARDIS. Dani went and tapped the inside of it. There was no sound and the barrier didn't ripple like force fields usually did.

'What is it?' Jack asked.

'The Impenetrable Barrier,' Dani answered. 'I've only seen it once. Once it's erected, nothing gets in or out. The harder you hit it, the bigger of a splat you make. Going slow doesn't help either. Then it's just like walking into a wall.'

The Doctor nodded in approval, having heard this before, and pulled out his sonic screwdriver. He soniced the barrier. This was the most powerful barrier he'd ever come across. And that was saying something.

'How do you get this thing up?' Jack asked. 'The last time you saw it, anyway?'

'Well only one kind of person can,' Dani said. 'And she doesn't do this very often. She prefers to be a bit more conventional. She's got two highly sophisticated guns, for the early 21st century, strapped to her hips, she can fire a bow somewhere around the level of Robin Hood, she knows every language on Earth and is trained in every form of martial arts ditto and knows everything that could possibly be crammed in a human brain.' She paused. 'There's a fair bit more room in there than I thought there was.'

'When does she usually use this?' the Doctor asked.

'Two conditions,' Dani answered. 'The first is when she has to do something and she can't have any interruptions.'

'And the second condition?' Jack asked.

'Trying to keep someone alive,' Dani said. 'Whether that be one person or a group of people, it doesn't matter. She puts the barrier up to keep someone alive. There are various reasons for that. Sometimes it's because they'll be needed in the future, sometimes it's because it's not their time and sometimes she just being sentimental.'

'It's Carly, isn't it?' the Doctor asked.

'What gave it away?' Dani asked.

'I heard you call her a sentimentalist when we first got to Malcassairo,' the Doctor answered. 'And you mentioned this when you told me about her.'

They walked in.

'I don't get it,' Jack said. 'We're wearing these, but she put the barrier up the moment he were at the door of the TARDIS.'

Carly popped up from underneath the console. Her chocolate hair was long and straight and her green eyes were exhausted but bright. 'Mental deceptions don't work on me,' she told Jack. 'I'm the Sovereign of the 21st Century. Reality's existence depends on me. You'd be in a bit of trouble if I was tricked by a mental deception.'

The Doctor stared in horror at the contortion wrapped around the console.

'Yeah,' Carly said. 'It's a paradox machine, you've probably guessed. Or what's left of one. I've been pulling it off. I don't think the Master's gonna try to kill mankind until he's got you. The way I understand it, you're quite the leader. Could lead a revolution against him if you wanted.'

'Lock me up, safe and sound, so I can't do that.' He reached past the machine and stroked the console. 'It'll be all right, old girl.'

'Nah.' Carly shook her head. 'That's a bit too thick. You'd escape. You always escape and he knows it.'

'What's he want to do instead, then?' Dani asked.

'Remember Lazarus?' Carly asked. 'Vain old man who didn't want to die.'

'Yeah, what about him?' Dani asked.

'Saxon funded him,' Carly said. 'Then, after you were done, he took the research, perfected it, and reversed it.'

'Oh!' the Doctor exclaimed in realisation, because now they were under the protection of the Impenetrable Barrier. They didn't need to worry about being heard or noticed. 'He doesn't want to lock me up. He wants to age me! A helpless old man! Slow! Weak-limbed! Jelly-muscled!'

'Yeah, pretty much,' Carly said. 'He's also developed a sonic laser with the ability to knock Dani and Jack out for the count and age you. And not very smoothly.'

'He's developed something that could knock Dani down?' the Doctor asked.

'Now that's a laser worth seeing,' Dani murmured appreciatively. Being the species that she was, it was instinct to seek out things that could test her limits. Make her stronger.

'Wait a minute.' The Doctor looked at Carly. 'You said the Toclafane need the paradox machine to kill the humans? But that would imply…you're kidding me.'

Carly, knowing what he suspected, shook her head. 'I'm not. He got the humans from the end of the universe. He was the one who sent out the signal. Told them he could save them. They'd gone mad. They were willing to do anything. And they think killing is fun. Just a lump of flesh in a floating orb now.'

The Doctor, Dani and Jack moved around and started examining what was still attached of the paradox machine and the Doctor found the gage.

'This thing will be ready to use at two past eight in the morning,' he said.

'Which is about when the Master will realise that this thing isn't quite as operational as he thinks it is,' Carly agreed. 'He'll come to see what went wrong and find just because he took down the ship's shields doesn't mean it's unprotected. He'll scan this thing and—whoops—there goes the plan for world domination. Of course, he'll probably still try to get us.'

'Yeah, he will.' The Doctor grinned. Then he looked out the door in confusion. 'Do you mind answering me something.'

'Ask away.' Carly waved her hand.

'The amount of energy that you would be need for this barrier would be phenomenal,' the Doctor said. 'And if it came from your mind, it would take a lot of energy to keep up and keep strong. In theory, you'd have to concentrate very hard to maintain it and, even then, by this time you should be starting to waver. But not you.' He stroked a bit of the console that Carly had uncovered, soothing the ship. 'You keep it up and keep it strong as you're removing a very complicated paradox machine from a just as complicated timeship. You're not wavering and you're not faltering. In fact, it seems more like you're maintaining the barrier as a subconscious act.'

'Mid-conscious, actually,' Carly said.

'Eh?' the Doctor asked.

'As the Sovereign, I have three levels of consciousness as opposed to the normal two that most humans have,' Carly clarified. 'Most of the time, there's the conscious and the subconscious. But, with me, I've got three. I've got the foreconscious, which is where my every controlled action is centred. My mid-conscious is semi-controlled, semi-automatic. And my subconscious is every automatic action. The ability to erect the barrier is in my mid-conscious.'

'So it's staying up on automatic?' Jack asked.

'Yeah,' Carly agreed.

'But that power…' The Doctor shook his head. 'Dani said you were a human.'

'I am.' Carly yanked another piece of the paradox machine off and discarded it. 'When I took the mantle of Sovereign, my brain was altered so I could take it. Then, when 2099 turns over to 2100, I pass it onto the next guy and my brain returns to normal and filters so my head doesn't explode. Dani told you that too.'

'Amazing.' The Doctor grinned. 'To think the human brain could be altered into something that advanced and then revert back to its original state.'

'Don't want one person getting too much power,' Carly said. 'Besides, it didn't hurt at all. Back then, my human, mortal mind wasn't quick enough to feel the pain of the metamorphosis. Because all that power and knowledge and endurance was filtered to me in the millisecond that 1999 became 2000.' She turned away and started working on the next part of the paradox machine. 'Other people, though, aren't so lucky. The Sovereign is the only one with the luxury of painlessness and going back to what they were. Like, in this case, takes about two years.'

'Come again?' Dani asked. 'Who's changing?'

'Doctor, do you remember that hallucination you had on 42?' Carly asked. 'The one I wouldn't tell you whether it was real or not? Well, it was.'

'What?' the Doctor demanded.

'And it wasn't a hallucination,' Carly went on. 'It was a psychic link. Your ship here created it to give you a strong enough incentive to fight off the sun. She sent the link back in time and through the Medusa Cascade to reach her. It works both ways too. A few minutes before you saw her, she saw you.'

'Blood and bone!' Dani suddenly exclaimed. 'You did do it, didn't you?'

'Yup,' Carly chirped.

'Did what?' Jack asked.

'Moved her through the Rift,' Dani said. 'That energy that went through the Rift and disappeared. That's impossible. But Carly could convert a human body to energy, shift it through the Rift and then make it human again.'

'Actually, I just took her to the Rift,' Carly responded. 'The whole converting into energy, shifting through the Rift and turning back into a human she did on her own.'

Carly was completely unsurprised when the Doctor suddenly shot forward, twisted her around, grabbed her collar and slammed her against the piece of paradox machine she was working on. It hurt but Carly didn't fight back. The guy had a very good reason to be angry.

XXX

The Doctor knew what she meant. Carly remained passive. Dani had already figured it out and if Jack hadn't, this would have given it away.

'She had the vortex in her head,' Carly said. 'You had it for a fraction of the time she did and you were forced to regenerate. Yet, with her, all it caused was memory loss. And that memory slowly came back over the following year.'

'Why?' he all but snarled.

'You wouldn't be able to take it if she died,' Carly said. 'Like Dani said, I'm a sentimentalist. I love a happy ending. So I made a deal with…well, for simplicity's sake, let's call them the Powers That Be. If I took full responsibility for the conversion, they'd allow her to last for as long as you do. The first thing to happen, happened slowest. The last year you two were together. Her mind strengthened so she began to remember what happened that day and a Translation Cortex developed in her brain. That was the only painless part of the conversion. Between all three parts of the conversion, there would be a lull where she would adjust to the changes before the next part began. The next part was her mind amplifying to the level where she could harness the power that remained inside her at will. That's what you saw that day. We used the lull between that and the next part to get in here. Not five minutes later, the final part began. Her body has to convert. That's so she doesn't burn and it also stops her ageing. That's what's happened.'

The Doctor felt all his muscles were locked. Dani and Jack came and stood beside him. They gently grabbed his arms, both knowing what was going through his head.

'We'll help Carly get rid of the paradox machine,' Dani told him. 'You go to her.'

'She needs you, Doctor,' Jack said.

The Doctor released Carly. He turned and ran. He ran down the corridors of the TARDIS to the room he hadn't set foot in since he lost her. He activated the panel and slowed to a stop inside.

There she was. Her blonde hair was fanned across the pillow and the duvet was pulled up over her. But her body was covered in sweat and her muscles were tense in pain. As the Doctor drew closer he could hear her quiet whimpers of pain. He sat on the edge of the bed and her eyes snapped open. Her bloodshot hazel eyes looked right at him in relief.

'Doctor…' she whimpered. 'It hurts…'

'Shh.' He laid down next to her and wrapped his arms around her as she crawled onto his chest. 'I know, Rose, love. I know.' He kissed the crown of her head.


	11. Last of the Time Lords

**What would happen if it turned out Rose's presence in the parallel world caused a misbalance?**

**(No Martha or Jones family in this one)**

Chapter 11: Last of the Time Lords

The Doctor crossed into Rose's ensuite bathroom and grinned. The sink and the bath were filled up with water. The TARDIS had thought ahead. He'd discarded his jacket and now he rolled up his sleeve and tested the water. Lukewarm. That was even better. That was his girl, caring for Rose as much as she cared for him.

XXX

Rose breathed a sigh of relief as she felt the cool water on her burning skin. She could hear the Doctor's double heartbeat in her ear.

'Feel better?' he murmured.

She nodded slightly, unable to do much more. She heard the door slide open. Someone walked in.

'How is she?'

_Jack._ That was Jack. She forced her eyes open and looked up at him. He looked the same as ever, except a little different. Probably had work done.

'Ask her yourself,' the Doctor told him.

Jack crouched down. 'Hey, Rosie.'

'Hey,' she mumbled.

'How are you doing?' Jack asked.

'Still alive.'

'How are you doing getting that paradox machine down?' the Doctor asked him.

'It's off,' Jack told him. 'When the Master figures out something's wrong and comes here, Dani's going to demonstrate the effectiveness of the barrier by throwing parts of the paradox machine into it really fast. But she doesn't want the Master to know it's completely off.'

'I think I know why,' the Doctor said.

XXX

Dani stood outside the doors to the TARDIS and behind the Impenetrable Barrier with her arms folded across her chest. She watched as Saxon led some soldiers and Toclafane in. She smirked.

'Stop,' the Master said.

They all did.

'What for, sir?' one of the soldiers asked. 'She's unarmed.'

'She doesn't need to have a gun to be armed,' the Master said. 'And whenever she smirks like that, it means she's got something up her sleeve.'

'You're uncharacteristically clever today,' Dani remarked. 'But you couldn't stop us getting in.'

'How did you get in?' the Master asked. 'I had guards all over the place.'

'We used your own Archangel system against you,' Dani answered. 'Shifted their perception so they didn't notice us right under their noses. It was easy to get in. And see this green thing here? Do you know what that does?'

'Why don't you show me?' the Master asked.

Dani grinned and ran in. She grabbed parts of the paradox machine and threw them out the TARDIS at a high speed. They hit the barrier and, upon contact, disintegrated. They fell to dust. Dani walked out and snickered at the shocked looks of the Master and the humans.

'The Impenetrable Barrier,' Dani said. 'The harder you hit it, the more likely you are to die. And, as for going slow…' She knocked on it and it sounded like she was knocking on wood. '…it's like walking into a wall. You don't come in and we don't go out. The barrier doesn't come down until we're good and ready. Goodbye.'

She walked back in, closing the door behind her.

XXX

Dani walked into the room the night of the third day and saw the Doctor and Rose were curled up on the bed, sound asleep. Dani studied Rose. She'd never seen her up close. She was soft-featured, innocence was painted over her face and she looked so fragile, but Dani knew the woman the Doctor fell in love with would have all the strength of time and space. There was no way she was as fragile as she looked. Dani smiled. Carly came up behind her.

'Having a good sticky-nose?' she asked.

'They're gonna be okay, yeah?' Dani asked.

'Yeah,' Carly said. 'The two most powerful beings in the universe. The Oncoming Storm and the Bad Wolf. Always together. Always and forever. They balance each other and they humble each other. They support each other and they love each other.'

'When will she be completely converted?' Dani asked.

'Tomorrow morning.'

'Good.'

They looked and saw the Doctor's eyes on them.

XXX

Rose opened her eyes. The pain was gone. She had a double heartbeat in her ear. She also opened her eyes.

'Morning, sleeping beauty,' the Doctor murmured against her hair. 'How do you feel?'

'Better,' she said. 'The pain's gone.'

She leaned up and looked down at him. He grinned at her. She loved that look and she'd forgotten how much she loved the look of his smile. There was a bang on the door and the smile fell away. He glanced at the door before returning his attention to her, seeming to just remember that they had other things to deal with before they could relax.

'Do you know what's going on?' he asked.

'Carly told me on the way here,' Rose agreed.

The Doctor looked sombre. 'Jack thinks that we should just kill him. Dani and Carly are keeping their opinions to themselves. I don't think Dani knows what to do. She's keeping her lips so tight, they're turning white.'

'You can't kill him, though,' Rose murmured in understanding. 'He's the only other member of your species alive. And he used to be your friend.'

The Doctor nodded. Rose thought about it for a second before she came up with an idea.

'Carly told me about the Fob Watch,' she said.

_Uh oh. How much did she tell her?_

'Yeah?' he asked.

'Yeah,' she murmured. 'So, I'm thinking that you can't lock him up. He just always escapes, doesn't he?'

The Doctor sat up. 'Are you suggesting what I think you're suggesting?' There was that familiar glimmer in his eye.

'What do you think?' Rose responded.

'I think you're brilliant.' The Doctor kissed her, simply because he could.

She smiled against his lips.

XXX

The Doctor and Rose walked out and into the TARDIS kitchen where Jack, Dani and Carly were. They all looked up as they came in, except Carly who probably didn't need to look. Jack got up and came over and gave Rose a hug.

'You feel better, Rosie?' he asked.

'Much,' Rose said.

Then he stepped back and Dani came forward. She stopped right before she got to them. Not in nervousness, clearly, but habitually. She was probably just used to stopping before she got to someone.

'Hi, I'm Dani,' she said. 'You're Rose, right?'

'Yeah,' Rose agreed. 'And Carly's told me about you.'

'I know.' Dani nodded. 'She told me about what she told you. Do you know that I'd actually seen you before you met the Doctor…properly. And I wasn't allowed to come over and say "hello" because of the stupid timelines. I actually first saw you about three months before you met the Doctor for the first time.'

Rose chuckled. 'Yeah, that is annoying.'

'So, Carly told me what the plan is,' Dani said. 'I got the stuff in the console room.'

'I didn't hear her say anything.' Jack lifted his head.

'I didn't say it out loud.' Carly chuckled to herself.

'So what are we doing?' Jack asked.

XXX

The Doctor walked, strode confidently actually, into the room with Dani and Jack flanking him. They immediately had the guns of the SWAT team on them. But they never faltered. Not for one second. They only stopped at the foot of the staircase the Master stood atop.

'So the Doctor has shown himself,' the Master said.

'The paradox machine is dismantled and the shields are up,' the Doctor told him. 'I have an immortal ex-Time Agent on one side and one of the Presans on my other side. Any artillery you lob at me will come to no use. It will either be knocked away or taken by one of my companions.'

The Master smirked. He pulled out his sonic laser quickly and fired it. But it hit a green barrier that spontaneously appeared. The Doctor crossed his arms across his chest and gave the Master an exasperated look.

'I know all about your plan, Master,' he said. 'Age me into an old defenceless man by using the perfected and reversed notes of Lazarus. Then attack the world with the Toclafane, who are mutated humans from the end of the universe.'

The Master began to look worried. 'How did you know that?'

'Fascinating people out there,' the Doctor remarked. 'Take the Sovereignty of Reality. A group of interdimensional humans that gain the greatest power out there, one at a time. It goes on a succession basis every time the century turns. Always humans. With three levels of consciousness, the ability to travel through dimensional walls without causing damage to the walls, all advanced mental capabilities including telepathy and telekinesis. Oh, and the ability to conjure up the Impenetrable Barrier.'

The Master got it immediately. 'Is that why sonic interference wasn't working? Because there wasn't a machine generating that?'

'That's right.' The Doctor grinned.

What the Master and his wife hadn't noticed was two young women on the platform with them. The girls moved as the Doctor and the Master spoke and the Master began to understand that he was outmatched. The blonde girl slipped behind the Master and winked at the Doctor before she tapped the Master on the shoulder with a look that would make almost anyone think butter wouldn't melt in her mouth. He spun around and was slapped so hard that he dropped the sonic laser and tumbled down the stairs. The brunette pulled a gun on Lucy.

'If you work for the Saxon,' she barked out at the soldiers, 'get in a group in the corner or his wife gets it.'

'She'll do it too,' Dani agreed.

All the guards and soldiers hurried to do what they were told. The brunette pulled out another gun so she had both Lucy and the Master's men under the trigger. She kept a look on her face so that they knew she would shoot too. The Master was on the floor, rubbing his cheek. He was looking up at the blonde. The blonde that'd slapped him came down and over to the Doctor.

'I'd do that again just for the look on his face,' she said.

'I'd have you do it again just for the look on his face.' The Doctor nodded with a gleeful grin.

Then he kissed her, deeply. She grinned when he pulled away.

'Oh, you have a wife too?' the Master asked in distaste.

'Nah,' the Doctor said, wrapping his arm around the blonde. 'I haven't married her. Yet. Master, this is Rose Tyler.'

The Master's eyes bugged. He looked over the girl. She wasn't what he was expecting. He expected her to be more…tough. She should've look a lot harder than she did. She looked fragile, actually. How did they Doctor fall for her? Then again, she had flattened him onto his tush by sneaking up on him. That left one simple question.

'I heard you say she was trapped on a parallel universe!' he insisted. 'How did she get back here?'

'A little something called the Bad Wolf,' the Doctor answered. 'Oh, and Carly, up there, helped. She's the latest member or the Sovereignty of Reality. The Sovereign of the 21st Century.'

'Look down on the Earth, Master,' Carly told him.

A series of holograms appeared. They showed various streets over this Earth being patrolled by aliens—should they look human or not—who had weapons and force fields. They couldn't be touched at all.

'Who are they?' the Master asked.

'They are my Foundation,' Dani answered.

'What Foundation?' the Master asked.

'The Kaias Foundation,' Dani said. 'About 300,000 of the people on Earth are actually aliens. A good majority of these aliens come to live here but cannot fit in with the humans easily. They're too different. So if they're willing to be protectors, I'm willing to take them on. They're patrolling the entire Earth, Master.' She smirked. 'Just because I'm a primitive doesn't mean I'm without my resources.'

XXX

The Doctor staggered to his feet as soon as the teleport landed them. He turned and saw the Master standing before the launch field. The Master spread his arms.

'Now it ends, Doctor!' he called. 'Now it ends!'

Alarms blared as the rockets prepared for takeoff.

'We've got control of the Valiant,' the Doctor told him. 'You can't launch.'

'Oh, but I've got this.' The Master held up a control. 'Black hole converter inside every ship. If I can't have this world, Doctor, then neither can you. We shall stand upon this Earth together as it burns!'

'Weapon after weapon after weapon,' the Doctor said, approaching him. 'All you do is talk and talk and talk. But over all these years, and all these disasters, I've always had the greatest secret of them all. I know you. Explode those ships, you kill yourself. That's the one thing you could never do.' The Doctor held his hand out. 'Give that to me.'

The Master hesitated. Then he slapped the remote into the Doctor's palm. But suddenly the whole ground shook and they both fell and the Master tried to snatch it back. The two Time Lords grappled on the ground for the remote. Then the Doctor managed to hit the teleport and they were transported back onto the Valiant, where Dani, Rose and the rest of them waited.

XXX

The entire Valiant lurched and everything and everyone went flying everywhere. Rose suddenly found herself in the safety and security of the Doctor's arms. They grinned at each other.

'Everyone get down!' the Doctor ordered. 'Time is reversing!'

They all hit the ground. The Doctor held Rose and they both laughed at the thrill of it all. Then they both leaned in and kissed. Rose felt like she could never get enough of this. Even the eternity they knew was ahead of them wasn't enough. They would have completely lost themselves in it if Jack hadn't been interrupted them.

'Aw!' Jack called over the noise. 'Sweet! How come I never get any of that?'

They broke the kiss and both grinned at their old friend. Dani sniggered at them. She seemed to be enjoying this as much as Jack was. The Doctor and Rose simultaneously decided to pick on him the way he was picking on them.

'Buy us a drink first!' the Doctor called.

'You're such hard work!' Jack called back.

'But worth it!' Rose laughed.

Everything slowed to a stop. They all climbed to their feet and the Doctor ran over to check.

'The paradox is broken!' he called. 'We've reverted back. One year and one day, two minutes past eight in the morning.' He ran over and turned on the radio.

'_This is UNIT central,'_ the man said. _'What's happened up there? We just saw the President assassinated.'_

'See?' the Doctor murmured. 'Just after the president was killed, but just before the spheres arrived. Everything back to normal. Planet Earth restored. None of it happened. The rockets, the terror, it never was.'

'And the spheres?' Rose asked, coming over to him.

'Trapped at the end of the universe,' the Doctor assured her, wrapping his arm around her.

'Why can we remember it?' Jack asked.

'We're at the eye of the storm,' the Doctor explained. 'The only one's who'll ever know.'

The Master groaned as he pushed himself up. The Doctor, Rose, Dani, Jack and Carly went over and stood in front of the Master. He looked up at them. They weren't going to let him escape and he clearly knew it.

'Remember the old punishment, Master?' the Doctor asked. 'The punishment for falling in love with a non-Gallifreyan and acting on that?'

'The non-Gallifreyan would be executed,' the Master said. 'The Gallifreyan would be made to think they were a member of that species and live out that lifespan, oblivious to who they really were. But the law no longer exists, Doctor. Would you enforce it?'

'I'm guilty of loving a human, myself.' The Doctor affectionately gazed down at Rose. 'But no prison would hold you and I wouldn't be able to trust you on the TARDIS. It goes against my conscience and everything I stand for to kill you, so that leaves me with just one option.'

The Master understood. He shook his head but Dani grabbed him by the scruff of the neck. He could struggle all he wanted. Dani was physically one of the strongest people in the universe.

**London, England, 1772**

Harold Saxon pulled his coat tighter around him as he trudged through the streets. He was an accountant and was returning home from the office. His wife and children were waiting for him. He never noticed the small blue box sitting in the shadows or the four people—two men and two women—who watched him with such looks on their faces that would fill his mind with questions. And suspicion.

**Cardiff, Wales, 2007**

'So, is he stuck like that for the rest of his human lifespan?' Rose asked.

'And then he'll die of old age,' the Doctor said.

'Unless he gets his hands on that Fob Watch again and opens it as only he can,' Dani added. 'Which, knowing out luck, could happen sooner or later.'

'Back to work,' Jack said, ducking under the rails.

'I really don't mind, though,' the Doctor told him. 'Come with me.'

'Had plenty of time to think that past year,' Jack responded. 'The year that never was.' He looked at the memorial centre. 'And I kept thinking about that team of mine.' He looked back at the Doctor. 'Like you said, Doctor. Responsibility.'

'Defending the Earth.' The Doctor nodded. 'Can't argue with that.'

Then he pulled out his sonic and started deactivating Jack's vortex manipulator.

'Hey, I need that!' Jack complained.

'I can't have you walking round with a time-travelling teleport,' the Doctor told him sternly. 'You could go anywhere. Twice. Second time to apologise.'

'And what about me?' Jack asked. 'Can you fix that? Will I ever be able to die?'

'Eventually, yes,' Dani said.

The Doctor gave her a look. She knew something.

'Nothing I can do,' the Doctor told him. 'You're an impossible thing, Jack.'

The Doctor could tell Jack wanted to ask Rose, but he knew better. So Jack just laughed.

'Been called that before,' he said. Jack started to leave but then paused and turned around. He saluted. 'Sir.'

The Doctor flicked him a two-fingered salute.

'Ma'am,' Jack said to Rose.

It was Rose's turn to flick a two-fingered salute.

'Other ma'am.' Jack winked.

Dani also flicked a two-fingered salute. Jack went to leave again. Then he turned around again. 'But I keep wondering. What about ageing? Cause I can't die, but I keep getting older, the odd little grey hair, you know. What happens if I live for a million years?'

Dani threw her head back and laughed quietly. Clearly she had an image in her head.

'I really don't know.' The Doctor tried not to laugh.

Jack chuckled. 'Okay, vanity, sorry. Yeah. Can't help it. Used to be a poster boy! When I was a kid, living in the Boeshane Peninsula. Tiny little place. I was the first one ever to be signed up for the Time Agency. They were so proud of me. The Face of Boe, they called me.'

The Doctor froze as the pieces fell into place.

'I'll see you.' Jack turned and ran off.

'No,' the Doctor murmured, unable to believe Jack would end up like that.

'You're kidding me,' Rose murmured, catching the Doctor's arm.

'No,' the Doctor repeated. 'Definitely not. No.'

'Oh, yeah!' Dani laughed.

'No!' the Doctor repeated.

Then he and Rose burst out laughing simultaneously.

**London, England, 2007**

'You're going back to the Foundation, then?' the Doctor asked.

'Yeah,' Dani said. 'Doctor, I went with you because you needed somebody there to keep you sane. I mean, I knew that I was supposed to go with you then and there. I go by all the rules you taught me and everything you taught me to believe in but when it comes to a situation like that, I don't give a damn about the Web of Time.' She paused. 'You took care of me when no one else would. You're the closest thing I have to a dad. Do you really think I could let you go off on your own when you're in the condition you were in?'

The Doctor smiled.

'But you don't need me anymore,' Dani told him. 'You've got her. And forever.'

**Gold Coast, Australia, 2007**

Lucy Saxon stared out at the horizon. She'd been assured that there was a low chance that the Master would return and they'd brought her to this place to live out her life from scratch. To Australia. Down Under. Whatever you wanted to call it. She was here because she'd been vouched for.

Lucy remembered Rose. The Doctor loved her and she knew it. It was clear to anyone with eyes that Rose Tyler was absolutely the Doctor's world. He would have done anything for her and he made sure she was as optimistic as she could be. He probably had done more for her than any man had ever done for a woman. He had in Lucy's eyes. And Rose was too good for her own good.

In fact, it was Rose who had given her this. She said Lucy had been corrupted. Rose said that she deserved a second chance. So, upon the Doctor's orders, the Kaias Foundation had made her an Australian citizen on the Gold Coast and had her moved down here, where people didn't know who she was. And all because Rose Tyler had taken pity on her. She'd felt sorry for her.

Rose had sympathised with Lucy. The main difference between herself and Rose was that Rose had chosen the right Time Lord to love. So…she'd become an optimistic woman. Lucy had chosen the wrong Time Lord to love. And the Master had made Lucy a pessimistic woman. The Doctor, Rose and the Kaias Foundation had given Lucy as second chance.

XXX

They had barely gotten into the vortex, and Rose was heading back to wash up, when the TARDIS started shaking violently. Rose ambled back into the control room.

'What's going on?' Rose asked.

'Not sure.' The Doctor scrambled over the console, 'Oh! It's like we're colliding with something we shouldn't be.'

Suddenly there was another guy in the control room. He looked about 20 years older than the Doctor. Still…there was something familiar about him. The Doctor bumped into him.

'Excuse me,' the Doctor said.

'So sorry,' the guy said.

Then they realised the other was there.

'What?' the Doctor exclaimed.

'What?' the guy exclaimed.

They got face-to-face. 'What?'

'Who are you?' the guy asked.

Rose stared, but after a moment, the Doctor grinned broadly. 'Oh…' He seemed to remember something. 'Brilliant! I mean, totally wrong, big emergency, universe goes wrong in five minutes, but…brilliant!'

The guy didn't look impressed. 'I'm the Doctor. Who are you?'

_Oh, I get it._ Rose thought.

'Yes, you are.' Her Doctor was having a bit too much fun with this. 'You are the Doctor.'

'Yes, I am,' the other Doctor said. 'I'm the Doctor.'

'Oh.' Her Doctor laughed. 'Good for you, Doctor.' He was having fun with this so she stood back and watched the show. 'Good for brilliant old you.'

'Is there something wrong with you?' the other Doctor asked.

'Ooo!' her Doctor exclaimed. 'There it goes, the frowny face. I remember that one. Mind you, bit saggier than it ought to be. Hair's a bit greyer.' He rubbed his younger, Rose assumed, self's cheeks and then rubbed the hair. Then he wandered around the console. 'That's cause of me, though,' he said as his other self checked his cheeks. 'Two of us together's shorted out the time differential. It should all snap back into place when we get you home. Be able to close that coat again.' He closed his younger self's coat and stepped back. 'But never mind that. Look at you! The hat, the coat, the crickety-cricket stuff, the stick of celery…yeah. Brave choice, celery. But fair play to you, not a lot of men can carry off a decorative vegetable.'

'Shut up!' the younger Doctor who looked older ordered, taking off his hat. 'There is something very wrong with my TARDIS and I've got to do something about it very, very quickly—'

'Oh, you couldn't even understand yourself!' Rose couldn't keep silent any longer.

Both Doctors turned to her. One in surprise and the other in affection.

'What are you talking about?' the other Doctor asked.

'Oh, the back of our head!' her Doctor suddenly exclaimed.

'What?' the other Doctor asked, not turning around.

'Sorry, sorry.' Her Doctor apologised. 'It's not something you see everyday, is it? The back of your own head. Mind you, I can see why you wear a hat. I don't want to seem vain, but could you keep that on?'

He turned around. 'What have you done to my TARDIS? You changed the desktop theme, haven't you?'

'There's a desktop theme?' Rose asked.

'Yeah,' her Doctor told her.

'What's this one?' the other Doctor said. 'Coral? It's worse than the leopard skin.' He put on the glasses.

'Oh!' her Doctor exclaimed. 'And out they come, the brainy specs! You don't even need them. You just think they make you look a bit clever.'

The other Doctor stared at him in shock. Suddenly the alarm started blaring and the other Doctor pulled off his brainy specs. 'That's an alert. Level Five. Indicating a temporal collision. It's like two TARDISes have merged, but…there's definitely only one TARDIS present.'

'That's generally the meaning of the word "merged",' Rose remarked wryly.

He ignored her. 'It's like two time zones at war in the Heart of the TARDIS. That's a paradox. It could blow a hole in the space-time continuum the size of…' Her Doctor pushed the screen in front of his past self. '…well, actually, the exact size of Belgium. That's a bit undramatic, isn't it? Belgium?'

Her Doctor pulled out the sonic screwdriver. He held it out. 'Need this?'

'No, I'm fine,' he said.

'Oh, no, of course.' Her Doctor tucked the sonic away again. 'Went mostly hands-free, didn't you? Like "hey, I'm the Doctor. I can save the universe using a kettle and some string. And look at me. I'm wearing a vegetable".'

'Who are you?' the other Doctor asked.

'Take a look,' her Doctor told him.

He stared at him. 'Oh. Oh, no.'

'Oh, yes,' he said.

'You're…oh, no, you're…'

'Here it comes, yeah. Yeah, I am.'

'A fan.'

'Yeah—what?' Her Doctor looked after him.

'Oh, my God!' Rose groaned. 'How thick are you? And I'm talking to you, celery-stick.'

'What?' He turned to her.

'See?' her Doctor said. 'The human gets it.'

Rose stood up and went over to the other Doctor.

'Let me give you the facts,' she said. 'There is a paradox happening. Two TARDISes have merged. They have become one. He knows stuff about you that you don't tell anyone, yeah? Add onto the fact of all our comments and…?'

He stood there and thought about it. 'What are you saying?'

She stared at him pointedly. Suddenly a very loud bell rang. The younger-older-looking Doctor pulled the glasses off.

'The cloister bell,' he murmured.

'Yeah,' her Doctor said. 'Right on time. That's my cue.'

The older-looking Doctor shot around the console. 'In less than a minute, we're going to create a black hole strong enough to swallow the entire universe!'

'Yeah,' her Doctor said. 'That's my fault actually. I was rebuilding the TARDIS, forgot to put the shields back up. Your TARDIS and my TARDIS—well the same TARDIS at different points in it's own time stream collided, and there you go, end of the universe, butterfingers. But don't worry, I know exactly how this all works out. Watch. Venting the thermo-buffer. Roaring the Helmic Regulator! And just to finish off, let's fry those Ziton crystals.'

'You'll blow up the TARDIS,' his former self insisted.

'Only way out,' her Doctor responded.

'Who told you that?' the old Doctor asked.

'You told me that.' He hit the lever.

There was an explosion. Rose fell back onto her behind.

'Supernova and black hole at the exact same instant,' the former Doctor murmured.

'Explosion cancels out implosion,' her Doctor said.

'Matter remains constant,' the older-looking Doctor finished.

'Brilliant.'

'Far too brilliant,' the old Doctor agreed. 'I've never met anyone who could fly the TARDIS like that.'

'Sorry, mate, you still haven't.' Her Doctor turned away and came over and helped her up. 'You all right?'

'Not bad,' she said. 'Been better.'

'You didn't have time to work all that out,' the old Doctor said. 'Even I couldn't do it.'

'I didn't work it out.' Her Doctor turned back to his former self. 'I didn't have to.'

'You remembered.' He realised it.

'Finally,' she muttered. 'He gets it.'

XXX

'Where are you now?' the Doctor asked his former self. 'Nyssa and Tegan? Cybermen and Mara and Time Lords in funny hats and the Master? Oh, he just showed up again. Same as ever.' He darted around the console.

'Oh, no,' his fifth form remarked. 'Really? Does he still have that rubbish beard?'

'No,' the Doctor answered. 'No beard this time. Well, a wife.'

'Oh.' The fifth Doctor started to vanish. 'I seem to be off. What can I say? Thank you, Doctor.'

'Thank you,' he responded.

'I'm very welcome,' the fifth form said as he vanished.

XXX

Rose walked into the TARDIS after the thing with the Titanic.

'Busy day,' she remarked.

'Hmm.' The Doctor agreed as he launched them into the Time Vortex. 'Do you want to go to bed?'

Rose smiled and crossed over to him. She pressed her body up close to his and slowly undid the buttons of his jacket. He groaned quietly. She could feel his response pressed into her thigh. She ran her hands up his arms and hooked them around his neck.

'Only if you join me,' she whispered in his ear before nipping his earlobe.

'Incorrigible woman.' He growled.

* * *

><p>I'm sorry. I had to do the <em>Time Crash<em> special in here.


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